Carrick knew he was never going to emulate Keane as United's fearless midfield enforcer. As he put it, "I understood fans wanting another Roy Keane, but you can never replace a player like that so you do it another way."
That’s what Carrick did, putting his stamp on the Unitd midfield with his intricate passes, giving them a new level of control through possession. It must have been bizarre, then, for him to learn that Keane had torn into him on television after Carrick gave a post-match interview following United’s Champions League defeat to Olympiacos in 2014.
"That interview was just like their performance: flat," Keane said. "Say a bit more! A bit more urgency in his interview. That just reflected United’s performance tonight: flat, no urgency."
Carrick didn’t care, but his wife Lisa did, thinking it was wrong for Keane to pick on someone who had fronted up after a painful defeat. She tweeted: "Roy Keane, what a tw**. Says anything to provoke a reaction."
Lisa received a torrent of abuse on social media and swiftly deleted the post before crying on the phone when she spoke to Carrick. He, though, was nonplussed.
"It didn’t bother me one bit. I was just thinking about the game," he wrote. "I’m sure Roy didn’t lose sleep over it."
Carrick, however, was wrong about that. It led to a 12-year long grudge that is now manifesting itself in each appearance Keane makes on Sky Sports.