Michael Carrick could REJECT permanent Man Utd job amid stunning ‘best interests of the club’ revelation | OneFootball

Gary Neville has quelled growing calls for Michael Carrick to be named as the next permanent manager at Manchester United after sensationally revealing why the 44-year-old could turn down the opportunity, while the pundit has also assessed the club’s top-four chances with an “unthinkable” admission.

Manchester United appeared to be heading for a rather mundane season under the leadership of Ruben Amorim and with club chiefs seemingly standing by the Portuguese after backing him so heavily in the transfer market over the summer. But when he publicly called out the club over their January transfer policy following a 1-1 draw at Leeds and, having seemingly failed to see eye to eye with director of football Jason Wilcox, the club decided to act quickly and remove the Portuguese firebrand from his role.

With Carrick ultimately selected over Ole Gunnar Solskajer to lead the club through the remainder of the season, few would have expected the immediate and sensational improvement made under the 44-year-old club legend.

And with United now racking up four straight wins over Manchester City, Arsenal, Fulham, and now Tottenham, the Red Devils now sit not only well entrenched in the top four, but also Carrick, with a win percentage record of 85.7%, having now won six of his seven games at the helm across two caretaker spells.

Understandably, that has led to growing calls that Carrick should land the job on a permanent basis.

However, Neville insists United are currently happy biding their time and is adamant a final call on Carrick will be held off until the season’s end.

“I made my position clear a few weeks ago, and what I’m not going to do is repeat it every week, but what I did, I actually spoke to the club, because ultimately the club get asked all the time from journalists and broadcasters, what’s the position of the club,” the pundit began on the Gary Neville podcast.

Neville continued: “It’s a very difficult situation, you’ve got a massive movement now with what’s happened towards giving Carrick the job, saying that, really, he should be considered. That’s only going to build the more that he wins and the more that he gets closer to Champions League football.

“I have to say I thought their answer was pretty good. They said they’ve actually begun the process now, starting to look for another manager, which I thought was right.

“That’s good to hear because you need to plan for everything. They’ve started the process of speaking to and looking at other managers, building all the sorts of data and analysing who should be the next manager of the football club.”

With the likes of both Thomas Tuchel and Carlo Ancelotti both thought to be among the names under consideration, Neville says that Carrick may reject the chance to manage the club long term if he feels it is not in the “best interest of the football club.”

Gary Neville assesses Man Utd’s top four chances

Those four straight wins, remarkably, means United now sit fourth in the table and a win at West Ham on Tuesday evening (8.15 kick-off) can move United within three points of second place.

Looking strong candidates to bring Champions League football back to Old Trafford next season, Neville has assessed how he thinks the rest of the season will play out, explaining why it was “unthinkable” for the club to be dreaming of the Champions League before Carrick was brought in as interim boss.

“The team that is most confident about finishing in the top four out of Aston Villa, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool right now is probably United

“But things can turn around quite quickly. No one in that top-five or six will be thinking they’re okay. Even City might have come back a bit if they had lost today. No one will feel safe because it’s a bizarre season, teams are beating each other and strange things are happening.

“Everything at Man United is looking really, really good and they do look like they’ve got an incredible chance of qualifying for the Champions League. They don’t have the confusion and the chaos of the fixture list that the others do so they have a massive chance now to get back into the Champions League.

“That would have been unthinkable only four or five weeks ago, unthinkable. I can’t believe where Manchester United are. It was terrible under Ruben Amorim; it was shocking. But now the results are excellent and the performances are fantastic.”

Latest Man Utd news: ‘Next Michael Essien’ wanted; Mainoo embarrasses Amorim

Meanwhile, TEAMtalk can reveal that Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United have all stepped up their interest in a quality FC Nordsjaelland sensation, with representatives from all three clubs in attendance at the weekend to watch the Ghanaian midfielder up close.

The player in question, wanted by Brighton as their top pick to succeed Carlos Baleba, has earned comparisons to the iconic former Chelsea star Michael Essien.

Elsewhere, Kobbie Mainoo has left former Red Devils boss Ruben Amorim completely ’embarrassed’ by his performances under interim Old Trafford chief Michael Carrick, according to former Arsenal striker Ian Wright.