Michael Carrick's Former Teammates Ready to Support Manchester United

Michael Carrick will never be short of familiar faces if he ever needs help steering Manchester United’s future.

Across continents and career paths, some of his most decorated former team-mates are openly declaring one thing: if Carrick calls, they’ll come.

Silvestre ready for the boardroom

Mikael Silvestre spent nine years at Old Trafford, winning everything there was to win and sharing a dressing room with Carrick in his final two seasons at the club. Those years left a mark. Not just on him as a player, but on how he sees the game.

He walked away from the pitch in 2014 and chose not to follow the well-trodden route into the dugout. Coaching badges? He got them. Coaching career? Not interested.

Silvestre instead moved upstairs. First at Rennes, the club where he started his professional journey, then at CFR Cluj in Romania, working as director of football and learning the mechanics of recruitment, structure and long-term planning.

Now, if United ever wanted to reunite him with Carrick, 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 his preference crystal clear. He’ll be at United in September, watching training, keeping a close eye on a club he still feels attached to.

Like every ex-player, he says he looks out for all his former sides. Then he adds the important bit: United more than most. “I played for them for nine years, after all.”

There is, of course, a complication. The job he’d want is already taken. Jason Wilcox has been promoted into the director of football role, stepping up in the wake of Dan Ashworth’s departure. It leaves Silvestre admiring from a distance rather than stepping into the corridors of power.

For now.

Rooney’s “no-brainer” return

On the touchline, another United great waits in the wings.

Wayne Rooney is between managerial jobs after a bruising spell at Plymouth Argyle in 2024. The former United captain has moved into punditry, his voice now a regular presence in studios rather than on the training ground.

Yet the idea of working with Carrick at Old Trafford cuts through all of that. Asked earlier this year whether he’d return to United under his former midfield partner, Rooney didn’t hesitate.

“Of course I would. It’s a no-brainer,” he said in January. The caveat came quickly – he stressed he wasn’t “begging” for a job – but the sentiment was clear. If United, and specifically Carrick, wanted him, he’d walk back through the door.

He knows the stakes. “Appointing the manager is the most important thing,” he added, a line that underlined how seriously he views the structure around the head coach. Rooney, like Silvestre, isn’t pitching himself blindly. He’s making it obvious he’d only move for something that truly matters to him.

And there is no club that matters more.

Valencia would “go running”

Then there is Antonio Valencia, the quietly relentless full-back who shared nine seasons in the United dressing room with Carrick and wore the armband with the same understated authority.

Now 40 and working with Telemundo Deportes on World Cup coverage, Valencia is far from Manchester geographically, but emotionally he’s still close.

“Yes, I would go back,” he told Hajper when asked about returning to United. There was no talk of job titles, no insistence on a specific role. Just a simple, heartfelt declaration.

“Manchester United is a club that gave me so much. 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.”

The image he painted was vivid. If the phone rang, if United asked, he wouldn’t stroll back. “If they called me, I would go running.”

A club that still pulls its own back

Silvestre, Rooney, Valencia. Three different careers, three different current paths, one shared conclusion: if Michael Carrick and Manchester United ever want them, they’re ready.

Silvestre sees himself in the boardroom. Rooney talks about the dugout. Valencia would take anything, such is his attachment to the badge.

Carrick’s coaching staff is, as Silvestre points out, already full. The director of football seat is occupied. United’s structure, at least on paper, is settled.

But football moves quickly. Power shifts. Roles open. And when they do at Old Trafford, it’s clear there is a generation of former team-mates willing to drop everything and answer the call.

The question is not whether they’d come back.

It’s whether United – and Carrick – will ever decide they need them.