When Michael Carrick got up on stage at Manchester nightspot Victoria Warehouse after his testimonial in 2017 and sang Wonderwall with Robbie Keane, those who know him well weren’t one bit surprised.
While Carrick has always come across as a softly-spoken, shy individual — as understated off the pitch as he was on it — there is another side to the new Middlesbrough boss that is not immediately evident.
Sir Alex Ferguson detected it soon after signing Carrick from Tottenham for £18.6million in the summer of 2006.
‘He was a shy boy who needed to be shaken at times,’ Ferguson wrote in his autobiography.