Michael Carrick - a wasted talent?

Hearing that Michael Carrick would be retiring at the end of this season and taking up a coaching role at Manchester United was a sad moment for me.

Not just because he was a player who I often tried to model my own game on as a youngster, but because it made me reflect on an ultimately wasted talent.

Not necessarily at club level, where Sir Alex Ferguson saw beyond the criticism he had in his early days, when the pressure was on to find a replacement for Roy Keane. Ferguson recognised the qualities Carrick brought and had shown as a young player at West Ham and Tottenham. Carrick won pretty much everything there is to win at club level. 

It was on the international stage where he was sorely underused - particularly in the big tournaments. Carrick earned 34 caps in total. Nothing to be ashamed of, of course, but when you see that the likes of James Milner, Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, Phil Neville, Gareth Barry and others have earned more caps it irks me slightly.

Carrick in his prime is the player that England sorely need now and in hindsight, clearly needed during the era of the 'golden generation'. 

I suppose it seems strange that I might say that when England had midfielders such as Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes (all regularly compared against each other). Sure, there was talent in the centre of park, where you could also consider David Beckham could play but what England really lacked was someone that could control the tempo of a game and be unnerved under pressure.

It was often question whether Gerrard and Lampard could, or should, play together in midfield. The evidence from their performances together in an England shirt suggests no but I wonder how they would have fared with a holding midfielder in Carrick behind them? 

England managers at one staged, particularly Sven, seemed wedded to 4-4-2 which meant shoehorning a player like Paul Scholes in at left midfield, or giving Gerrard or Lampard defensive responsibilities in the midfield unit. It was only when Michael Owen got injured at the World cup, and the other alternatives were Peter Crouch and Theo Walcott, did Sven decide to switch to a 4-5-1. 

Carrick was pretty unfortunate in this case too. Having performed excellently in his first and last game in an international tournament, he was dropped for Owen Hargreaves (who himself was playing very well, to be fair). Just when it seemed it had fallen into place it was snatched away from him. Here is a video where he is highlighted by pundits as man of the match in the game against Ecuador. 

Gary Lineker asks at the end of the video 'why has it taken so long for him to get a chance' and yet that was the last we would see of Michael Carrick at an international tournament! 

From 2006 onwards for several years, Carrick was one of the most consistent, high performing midfielders in Europe, let alone of the English players. It beggars belief as to how he was so vastly underrated by English managers.

Going into the 2010 World Cup, some of the concern was whether Gareth Barry would be fit in time, regarded as a key player. Fabio Capello response to Barry's lack of fitness was to change his whole game plan, ending up Lampard and Gerrard in a 4-4-2, once again. Carrick, meanwhile, spent the whole tournament on the bench. He was 28, at the peak of his powers you would argue! 

Roy Hodgson also appeared to neglect him, although he did make it clear that by then Carrick had made it clear he no longer wanted to join up with the squad only to be overlooked again. 

Looking at the current England squad; we don't really have an outstanding midfielder in that mould. Eric Dier is a good footballer, who can fill in at centre back or centre midfielder but I would not consider him to have the passing ability to play as a holding midfielder on his own. He benefits from having Mousa Dembele or Christian Eriksen around him where he can distribute the ball to them. England lack a player with the level of passing ability Carrick possessed, and that is a real issue considering the way the FA want England team's to try and play in this day and age.

My other concern is where the next 'Carrick' is going to come from? Do we place emphasis on this type of player in England? 

Don't get me wrong - the academies in England are clearly producing some seriously talented footballers. Whether they get the opportunity is another question of course, but the success of the England youth teams last summer points to a high standard coming through. But what I am hoping we can produce in the near future are players who can control the tempo of a game from deeper positions, players who can play under pressure to create space for other players. 

We have a lot of talented attacking footballers, and have many young players (Sterling, Kane, Rashford, Alli) in the current England squad but what we are really waiting for is a midfielder with the reading of the game, the vision and the composure Carrick demonstrated at his peak for Manchester United. 

It is nice to see that he is taking his first steps into coaching. If done in the right way, taking the necessary steps, he could provide a great insight for young footballers. He had a brain like few other English players and it will be very interesting to see the impact he may have at United next season. 

That said, I still can't help but feel that despite the success he had in his club career, he was a truly wasted talent in an England shirt.