Michael Carrick has won his first two games as Manchester United’s new head coach but Paul Scholes still cannot see the former Red Devils midfielder being the boss long-term
21:59, 26 Jan 2026Updated 22:13, 26 Jan 2026
Michael Carrick has made an instant impact as Manchester United’s new head coach(Image: Zohaib Alam – MUFC, Manchester United via Getty Images)
Paul Scholes reckons Manchester United‘s previous experiences with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will make the club reluctant to install Michael Carrick as their long-term head coach despite his fine start to life in the hotseat.
Carrick, who was previously a member of Solskjaer’s coaching team, returned to Old Trafford earlier this month on a contract until the end of the season after Ruben Amorim was sacked by the Red Devils. The former Middlesbrough manager, who left the Championship side by mutual consent back in the summer, has made an instant impact in the role, beating Manchester City and Arsenal in his first two games.
United’s impressive upturn in both performances and results under Carrick has already fuelled suggestions that he could be a genuine contender to land the head coach position on a longer contract.
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But Scholes believes United will be “scarred” by their previous experience of giving Solskjaer the job permanently off the back of a superb interim spell – and that is likely to affect Carrick’s chances of following suit.
Speaking on The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast, the former United midfielder said of Carrick: “He’s come into the job now and it’s been that bad for a year that it couldn’t really get any worse so the pressure isn’t really on you while you’re interim manager. Once you take that job full-time, at the start of the season next year, let’s say, all of a sudden you’ve got to be winning games straightaway.
“They will be scarred a little bit from the Ole [Gunnar Solksjaer] thing. If the Ole thing hadn’t have happened then it would probably be more likely.
Paul Scholes doesn’t see Carrick keeping the United job beyond the end of the season(Image: YouTube/The Good, the Bad and the Football Podcast)
“But if Michael has got to go up against, say, Thomas Tuchel in the summer then there’s only one winner if you’re looking at coaching big clubs and winning big prizes so you can’t really compete with that.”
Nicky Butt was in agreement and believes Carrick will know the score in that his chances of becoming Manchester United’s long-term head coach are slim. “I think Michael is that bright and intelligent, he’ll understand the job that he’s got,” Butt added.
“I can’t ever imagine Michael going on the TV… maybe his last game if he’s third or something like that… but up until then, he knows he’s got a contract until the end of the season to get the club moving forward in the right direction for the next manager.
Thomas Frank is under huge pressure at Spurs and Scholes thinks Carrick could put himself in the frame for the job at his old club(Image: Getty Images)
“He’ll know that and I know Michael well, he won’t be out there, he’s not stupid enough to say, ‘Yeah, I want the job’, because that’s not what he signed up to.
“His next job, if he wants to stay in football as a manager for another club, would be a good job if he does well here.”
Scholes then suggested Carrick could take charge of another of his old teams, Tottenham Hotspur, saying: “It could be like a Tottenham manager from this [for Carrick]. It wouldn’t surprise me.”
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