Michael Carrick has been under intense pressure as Man Utd head coach but he landed a crucial victory in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Michael Carrick
Michael Carrick finally got to savour another Manchester United victory on Tuesday night
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Michael Carrick insisted sleep would come no easier to him despite finally seeing his Manchester United team win a game on Tuesday, ending a 54-day and nine-match run that has seen him come perilously close to being sacked.
At half-time against Roma on Tuesday, Carrick's time in charge looked to be over. United had turned in an error-strewn and tactically naive performance in the first 45 minutes and were on course for a fourth straight defeat.
Had they lost the game, then it would have been a case of when rather than if Carrick was dismissed. The club's decision-makers resolved to give him until the international break last week, when they came close to wielding the axe after the 3-0 defeat to Bournemouth.
To follow up that reprieve with defeats to Chelsea and Roma would have signalled the end, probably regardless of what happened on Sunday against Aston Villa. Instead, United conjured up one of those famous Old Trafford European nights and Carrick does have some breathing space.
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But it was also a night that conjured up as many questions as answers. Carrick once again soaked up the acclaim from the Stretford End at full-time, but at the break it felt as if much of this catastrophe was on him.
Diogo Dalot took the wrath of supporters, but Carrick's tactical call to push him so high up the pitch left the left flank exposed and both of Roma's goals came from Soule using the space behind Dalot. It felt tactically naive and while director of football Jason Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada sat stony-faced in the directors' box, alarm bells must have been ringing.
Dalot is not only out of position as a left-back, but then asked to play in the forward line as well and cover acres of space down the wing. To add to the complication, the inexperienced Ayden Heaven was the left-sided centre-back trying to patrol one side of the pitch.
That Carrick only changed it after United had been exposed twice was a concern, and he tilted the balance so that right-back Leny Yoro pushed on, only for Roma to almost get in twice down that side of the pitch before half-time. This wasn't a tactical approach United were using earlier in the season and smacked of a desperation to try new things.
But rather than succumb to the inevitable, Carrick kept his cool at half-time, reminding the players how games at Old Trafford can change on one goal. Once Bruno Fernandes eventually scored his penalty, the atmosphere switched from mutiny to support.
A possessed Matheus Cunha took matters into his own hands, but the manic intensity and aggression that Cunha played with in the second half summed up the unsustainable nature of the comeback. It felt like a result driven by emotion, with the players embracing the chaos.
Carrick has tried and failed to build a team to control games, then watched the players save his job with a 45 minutes that feels unrepeatable. Backed into a corner, the squad finally came out fighting, but it's difficult to replicate that from the off against Villa this weekend.
It's also impossible to sustain it over a long season when you're playing twice a week. All eyes will now be on Old Trafford on Sunday to see if the United of the second half turn up again or revert to the ways of recent weeks. The greater body of evidence suggests it will be the latter.
If that's the case, Carrick might still find his job at risk during the international break. That is the moment for Berrada, Wilcox and the club's under-fire owners to act, otherwise the schedule hardly allows time to come up for air until the New Year.
The 45-year-old has been compared to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ever since he took the job in January, and there were parallels again on Tuesday. Just over five years ago, Solskjaer's United came from 2-0 down at half-time against Gian Piero Gasperini's Atalanta to win 3-2 in the Champions League.
Gasperini has seen lightning strike twice, but will Carrick? That win turned out to be a false dawn. Four days later, United lost 5-0 to Liverpool at Old Trafford, and a month after an iconic Old Trafford comeback, Solskjaer was gone.
Carrick was on the coaching staff then and will be well aware that last night's win, while a moment to savour, could just as easily be one last magical night for him as it could be a turning point in his tenure.