Neville was certain Carrick was finished. Now he hopes the players will play for him

Gary Neville was certain Michael Carrick’s time at Manchester United was over after the Bournemouth defeat. Now that the club has kept him for the trip to Chelsea, Neville says he is glad, but he is not sure it can work.

When Manchester United lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth on Sunday, it was their eighth game without a win in all competitions, and it left them 16th in the table, one point above the relegation zone. Most observers, Gary Neville among them, assumed it would be Carrick’s last match in charge. The club decided otherwise, and Neville’s reaction on Sky Sports is one of the more honest pieces of pundit analysis of the week.

Neville: surprised, relieved and still sceptical

Neville did not pretend he had called it right. He said he was surprised but happy, because he had been “absolutely certain” that what he witnessed on Sunday “would be the end of Michael”. In his comments to Sky Sports, he pointed to the way Carrick walked round Old Trafford at the final whistle, alone, with his players some way behind him. To Neville it looked “almost a goodbye lap”, with Carrick acknowledging the fans in an apologetic manner.

His welcome for the reprieve comes with a large caveat. Neville does not know how the next couple of weeks will go, and he said as much. What he wants to see is a reaction from the squad: “I hope he can somehow get those players to start playing for him again.” The implication is that they have not been doing so for the last few weeks.

That is a serious charge from a former United defender who knows the dressing room culture well. It shifts the focus from tactics to commitment, and it is the thread running through most of what he has said about this team in recent weeks.

The counter-view: the clock is the problem

Neville’s patience is not universal. Jamie Carragher argued after the Bournemouth game that Carrick should have been relieved of his duties straight away, for his own sake as much as the club’s, and Neville himself has put much of the blame above the head coach. We set out both positions in Carragher says sack Carrick tonight, Neville says the real failure is above him.

Seen side by side, the two views are less opposed than they first appear. Both men accept that the current situation is not working. The difference is over whether a short stay of execution gives Carrick a realistic chance to change it, or simply lets a bad run run longer. Carragher would cut it now. Neville is prepared to wait and see whether the players respond.

What Chelsea will tell us

The trip to Stamford Bridge this weekend is a test in more ways than one. A competent performance would support Neville’s cautious optimism. Another flat display would make the reprieve look like a delay rather than a decision, and would hand Carragher’s argument fresh evidence.

There is also the question of the group. The row over Bruno Fernandes and the coaching staff, which we covered in Rooney’s verdict on the players, has not gone away. A head coach who has fallen out publicly with Bruno Fernandes and, in Neville’s reading, has lost his squad, needs a result quickly to restore any authority.

For Carrick, the margin for error is slim. For Neville, the interesting part is that he is willing to be wrong again. He expected the end on Sunday and was surprised; he now concedes he has no idea how the next fortnight will unfold. In a week when most opinion on United has been delivered with total certainty, that humility is a rarity, and it makes his one clear demand all the more telling: that the players give Carrick something back.

Carrick’s future will be settled on the pitch, and the early evidence from Stamford Bridge will matter more than any pundit’s verdict.