Michael Carrick's Support Network at Manchester United
Michael Carrick will never be short of familiar faces if he ever needs help at Manchester United.
Across continents and careers, some of his most decorated former team-mates are effectively on standby – and not in small roles either. Director of football. First-team coach. Club ambassador. They are already imagining the job descriptions.
Silvestre’s executive offer
Mikael Silvestre is one of them. The Frenchman spent nine years at Old Trafford, winning almost everything there was to win and sharing a dressing room with Carrick in his final two seasons at the club.
He walked away from playing in 2014 and made a clear choice: no tracksuit, no dugout. Instead, he went upstairs. Silvestre earned his coaching badges but parked them, preferring the boardroom to the touchline. He became director of football at Rennes, the club where he started his professional career, and later held the same role at Romanian side CFR Cluj.
Now, if United ever came calling, he knows exactly where he’d fit.
“I’d prefer the Director of Football role which I did at Rennes after I completed my Masters in sports management,” he told Grosvenor Sport, making no attempt to hide his preference for the strategic side of the game over the day-to-day grind of coaching.
There is a realism to his stance, though. Jason Wilcox currently occupies the director of football position at Old Trafford, stepping up after Dan Ashworth’s departure. Silvestre recognises there is no obvious vacancy to walk into.
“I don’t know because I believe his coaching team is already full,” he said when asked if former players would return to work under Carrick. “It’s a department that has everyone it needs so I don’t see anybody coming in from the outside to offer something extra.”
That doesn’t mean he has drifted away. Far from it. Silvestre still tracks United closely, more closely than any of his other former clubs.
“I will go and watch United in September and observe training but like all former players I look out for all my clubs, although I look out for United more specifically than others. I played for them for nine years, after all.”
The emotional connection remains strong. So does the sense that, under the right circumstances, he would happily plug back into the club’s hierarchy.
Rooney’s “no-brainer”
If Silvestre sees himself upstairs, Wayne Rooney’s vision is much more grass-stained.
The club’s all-time leading goalscorer has been out of management since his bruising spell at Plymouth Argyle in 2024, a short and difficult chapter that did little to dim his appetite for the game. For now, he is in the studio, working as a pundit and rebuilding his reputation in a different arena.
Yet one job would drag him away instantly.
Speaking in January, Rooney made it clear that teaming up with Carrick at United would be the one role he could not turn down.
“Of course I would. It’s a no-brainer,” he said. “I’m not begging a job here by the way. Just so everyone knows, if I was asked to go in of course I would. Appointing the manager is the most important thing.”
The message was unmistakable: this is not a man touting himself for any opening going. This is about one club, one manager, one opportunity. Rooney and Carrick shared some of the most successful years in United’s modern history. The idea of reuniting in the dugout clearly carries a powerful pull.
Valencia’s open invitation
Then there is Antonio Valencia, another nine-year servant of the club and a former captain who knows exactly what it means to play alongside Carrick in a winning United side.
Now 40, Valencia is working in the media with Telemundo Deportes, covering the World Cup. Yet his affection for United is such that he would drop everything if the phone rang from Old Trafford.
“Yes, I would go back. Manchester United is a club that gave me so much,” he told Hajper. “My family was very happy there. I would work for Manchester United in any role, out of passion. It is a club I love a lot. I think everything they are doing is going well. But if they called me, I would go running.”
No conditions. No title demands. Just a willingness to serve, in any capacity, for a club he still considers home.
A powerful safety net for Carrick
Carrick, for now, has his staff in place and a structure above him that United’s hierarchy believes in. Silvestre sees no obvious gap to fill. Rooney and Valencia remain outsiders looking in, attached by history rather than job description.
Yet the picture is striking. Across different continents and career paths, some of the most respected figures from United’s recent past are ready to answer the call if Carrick ever needs them.
For a manager trying to restore old standards at Old Trafford, there are worse safety nets than that.
