IT'S CARRAZY BUT IT JUST MIGHT WORK

Booted out by Boro yet Michael can have the last laugh in farce show at Old Trafford

- BY ANDY DUNN

THIS time last year, Michael Carrick's Middlesbrough were preparing for a trip to Portsmouth, where they would face a team that had lost five of their previous seven Championship matches.

Boro were beaten at Fratton Park and would then lose five of their next six games, a disastrous run that effectively condemned them to another campaign in the second tier.

A year on and Carrick has one of the biggest jobs in world football. To label the situation bizarre would be kind. To describe it as a farce is more accurate.

But, as the modern saying goes, it is what it is. And never mind the fact that he has only been appointed until the end of the season, the well-respected, personable Carrick has a dream role that is now his to lose.

This is no old timer popping in to help out his former club. This is no rookie stepping up from the junior teams.

Carrick is 44, approaching what some would consider to be a prime age for management.