The Briefing: Why would Carrick not get the Man Utd job? Did Villa help Spurs too much?

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Here, we will ask what is standing between Michael Carrick and the Manchester United job, whether Tottenham Hotspur have fixed themselves or if Aston Villa were just too accommodating, and if Bukayo Saka’s injury might have been a good thing for Arsenal. Carrick couldn’t have really done anything more to secure the Manchester United job permanently. Since his appointment on January 13, they have the best record in the Premier League. United have won 10 of his 14 games in charge, including victories over Manchester City, Arsenal, Aston Villa and, on Sunday, Liverpool: or, if you prefer, the other four teams in the top five. Kobbie Mainoo, United’s rejuvenated match-winner yesterday, summed up the squad’s feelings after yesterday’s victory, telling Sky Sports, “You want to die for him.” A bit extreme, maybe, but you get the point. United were seventh, 11 points behind third-placed Aston Villa, when Carrick signed up. Champions League qualification looked like a long shot, but under him, they’re now six ahead of Villa and have secured their spot with three games to spare. You would think that at most other clubs, that would be more than enough to get the full-time gig. But there are a couple of other factors at play. The first is the spectre of what has come before. United have previously fallen into the ‘trap’ of a club playing hero taking over temporarily, achieving impressive results and being given the full-time job. But this cautionary tale ignores that Carrick is a different figure from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and also exaggerates how bad Solskjaer was. Sure, he wasn’t the greatest manager and if United had left things a bit longer during his caretaker spell, then he probably wouldn’t have been appointed, but he still finished third and second in his first two full seasons. The other factor is what sort of manager minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe wants. Since his arrival, Ratcliffe has repeatedly discussed United’s stature, the desire to get them ‘back where they belong’. Usually, what comes along with that is an exciting ‘name’ as manager, which can mean the hot young thing (Ruben Amorim) or an elite big beast: something sexy, either way. Ratcliffe and United have been burned by the former, so it’s possible that their next move is the latter. The trouble being that those big beasts are rather an endangered species. There are a few at the World Cup, but they won’t be available until mid-July at the earliest. There’s Luis Enrique, but would you leave Paris Saint-Germain for United right now? Unai Emery might fall into that category, too, but the Aston Villa manager succeeds at clubs where he has more control than he would at United. He also struggled at PSG and Arsenal. Carrick isn’t an especially sexy name and doesn’t have decades of coaching experience, but his record over the last few months means he should get the job. Are Tottenham back? Has Roberto De Zerbi fixed them? Or, at least, fixed them just enough to stay in the Premier League? Perhaps. The relief among their fans at the end of the 2-1 win over Aston Villa was powerful, unsurprising given they’ve now achieved back-to-back victories for the first time since the opening two games of the season. They certainly looked much more impressive and should feel much better about life, particularly given West Ham, the team they have just leapfrogged, play leaders Arsenal next weekend. One caveat is their opponents for those two wins: the first came against Wolves, who have been relegation certainties since the autumn and have reverted to type after their brief revival a couple of months ago. The second victory was against a Villa side who could not have been more accommodating. With the second leg of their Europa League semi-final against Nottingham Forest on Thursday taking priority, Emery made seven changes, including a rest for Ollie Watkins, and the injury-enforced absences of Amadou Onana and John McGinn. Some affiliated with Tottenham’s immediate rivals may bleat about the integrity of the league, upset that Villa played a shadow side against a team who desperately needed the win, but that feels pointless. ‘Team rests players for more important fixture’ is not a new concept, and Emery’s responsibility is to his own team’s priorities: it’s not his fault that West Ham lost against Brentford, or that when they played Crystal Palace in a similar situation a few weeks ago (Palace also rested key personnel days after a tough European game at Fiorentina) they could only manage a 0-0 draw. The team selection was justifiable, but the performance was not. Villa were pathetic, embarrassingly bad, even considering the personnel. They barely offered any resistance in the first half when they went 2-0 down, and at absolutely no stage did they look like mounting a comeback. It was no surprise they were booed off, and perhaps the worst thing you could say about Villa is that they looked like Igor Tudor’s Tottenham. Villa are six points ahead of sixth-placed Bournemouth, so they should still qualify for the Champions League, but they still have Liverpool and Manchester City to face: if they play like they did against Tottenham, they could still let it slip. Then winning the Europa League would not just be desirable, but essential. It’s not normally good news for a title-chasing team to lose their best player for a month at a crucial stage of the season, but oddly, it might have been for Arsenal. Saka has not been himself for much of the campaign, which maybe isn’t a surprise given he’s been troubled by an Achilles problem for long stretches. That injury saw him miss five games in April, including both legs of their Champions League quarter-final against Sporting CP and the 2-1 defeat against Manchester City. It’s an injury that can be a killer for a player whose acceleration is one of his strengths, and after Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Fulham on Saturday, Mikel Arteta hinted that it had been inhibiting Saka. But not anymore. “I think the pain is gone,” Arteta told the media. “That was always something that was restricting his capacity to deliver certain actions.” He only played 45 minutes, with Arteta sensibly withdrawing Saka at half-time with Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid in mind. But the winger really did look like himself again, scoring once and creating another against an admittedly dreadful and virus-hit Fulham. More than that, there was a zip back to his performance, the sort of verve that has been missing for a lot of the campaign. And you can’t help but wonder if that month away has reset Saka, not just in terms of recovering from the Achilles problem but perhaps also serving as a mental refresh, allowing him to become sharp again. “He’s come back in the most important period of the season,” said Arteta, “and now he’s fresh, his mind is fresh, his hunger is at the highest possible height, and he needed a performance like that to impact the team.” Perhaps Saka would have made a difference in the defeat against City, but if that time away has perked him up again, being at the top of his game during these last few weeks could be much more beneficial for Arsenal, at home and in Europe. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms