He will hope the next 45 minutes are his Mark Robins moment. That is doubtful, but as a United player and coach, he now has moments to cherish against Roma. A familiar banner was unfurled by a United supporter by the tunnel at the interval that read, “Play like you mean it”.
Carrick played as though he had a career death wish before that bedsheet was brandished.
The game has been up for Carrick for weeks, yet the United decision-makers continue to let him play. They are playing with fire.
At least the players finally came alight. They clocked that bedsheet when it first made an appearance at Craven Cottage almost three years ago to the day and won. They seemed to get the message again.
The stirring fightback will soften criticism of Carrick but should not spare him beyond this week, given the inevitability that he will stride down the Old Trafford touchline against Aston Villa on Sunday. That should be his curtain call.
Of all the chastening moments in the past seven weeks for United, nothing came close to the first 20 minutes against Roma.
It was only halted by a half-hearted attempt at a protest when 27 tennis balls were lobbed onto the pitch. United showed them at 2-0 down. Italian football has been in decline for 20 years yet two of their teams have embarrassed them.
Roma could not keep it up for another 45 minutes.
Diogo Dalot spent a season on loan in Italy with AC Milan and he would not be short of volunteers on the Stretford End to drive him back there for a reunion with Ruben Amorim.
He was booed as he approached the tunnel at the pause.
United supporters sounded as angry with Dalot as they are with the Glazer family and Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
With Luke Shaw a resident in the physio’s room again, Dalot is the longest-serving member in the United squad. He often looks the most amateurish.
The right back was listed at left back on the tactical teamsheets, as he was against Bournemouth and Chelsea. Dalot has played at left back dozens of times.
Yet Carrick attempted to reinvent him as a left winger. Dalot’s roguish role there gifted Roma their two goals.
What compounded it was Dalot was playing right in front of Carrick. Worse yet, Carrick evidently okayed Dalot abandoning his station.
Repeatedly picking Leny Yoro at right back and Ayden Heaven at centre back is asking for it.
Those 20-year-olds can be cut some slack on account of their youth. They lack senior teammates to dig them out of a hole.
But Dalot is into his ninth year at United. He is No.1 scapegoat, on account of his longevity and the sheer lack of success during that period.
United supporters were on his back with the game goalless. Dalot kept on finding a charcoal shirt and the murmurs of disapproval grew louder. One irate fan started venting at him. Then Mathias Soule scored.
Dalot was the furthest United player forward when Kobbie Mainoo ceded the ball. The back four was the shape of a banana.
Astonishingly, it appeared to be part of the plan. Seconds before Heaven conceded a penalty, Carrick was urging United players to move higher up the pitch and seemed fine with Dalot being nearer the Roma area than his own.
He showed why he has survived at United for so long. For all Dalot’s faults, he possesses some resilience and fortuitously assisted Matheus Cunha’s equaliser.
During that fleeting respite when the game was goalless, Carrick implored a United player, or players, to press on two separate instances inside the first nine minutes. The instructions fell on deaf ears both times.
United’s game plan consisted of playing high and going long to a non-existent striker.
Bryan Mbeumo can chip in with a goal but United did not play to his strengths until Fernandes played him through to agonisingly clip both posts with one shot.
Even the worst United sides can stir the soul. After Lyon in 2025, Roma in 2026. Dalot scored in the former.
The death march has slowed down and Carrick has avoided the ignominy of matching the dull Dave Sexton’s 10-match winless run 48 years ago.
Cunha will not be his Robins, though.
