Archive June 4, 2025

Middlesbrough have sacked head coach Michael Carrick after two-and-a-half years in charge.

The former England midfielder, 43, took over at the Championship side in October 2022 for his first role in management.

He guided the team to a play-off finish in 2022-23 but they have missed out on the top six in the past two campaigns.

Boro spent much of the 2024-25 season challenging for a play-off spot but one win in their final six matches proved to be costly.

They stayed in the hunt for a top-six place until the final game of the season but defeat at Coventry saw them finish 10th.

Carrick started his coaching career with Manchester United, with whom he won five Premier League titles in his playing days, after retiring in 2018.

He had a spell in caretaker charge of the team in November 2021 after the departure of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer but left when Ralf Rangnick was appointed in December.

Boro turned to him in October the following year after a disastrous start to the season saw them sack Chris Wilder with the club in the relegation zone.

Carrick immediately turned their fortunes around as they flew up the table and into promotion contention.

They ultimately finished fourth for a first play-off campaign in five years but were beaten by Coventry in the semi-finals.

They fell just short of another Premier League push in the following season, as they finished eighth, four points off sixth.

Mark Drury, BBC Radio Tees Middlesbrough commentator

Middlesbrough’s decision to sack Carrick may surprise some outside Teesside but one thing it can’t be described as is a knee-jerk reaction.

A month has passed since Boro’s 2-0 defeat at Coventry on the final day of the Championship season.

That loss was their 18th of a desperately disappointing season and was followed by the head coach insisting “I’m carrying on” in his BBC Radio Tees Sport post-match interview.

Many Boro fans had come to the conclusion he would be doing just that as the days and weeks ticked by without any sign of white smoke from the club’s Rockliffe Park training ground. However, that silence was not indicative of inaction.

Boro’s hierarchy had let it be known they would be conducting an in-depth review into the reasons a season where promotion had been targeted and budgeted for ended in a failure to reach the play-offs despite an unusually low points total – the lowest for a decade – being required to make them.

They were as good as their word, conducting a series of meetings, a number of which involved the head coach, while trying to block out the chorus of disapproval from a fan base which had largely become disenchanted and detached by the season’s end.

There will be a sense of sadness on Teesside that Carrick was unable to follow up on the promise of his first season when some of the football left fans purring. That sadness will be weighed against the reality the club have gone backwards in the seasons since.

Attention now will be on who comes next? Rob Edwards is known to be highly-rated by head of football Kieran Scott while Sheffield Wednesday’s Danny Rohl will be of interest to any Championship club without a manager after his sterling work at Hillsborough.

In Ireland’s squad for the games against Georgia and Portugal in July, there are 11 uncapped players, including scrum-half Nathan Doak.

Many hopefuls will now be chosen for the summer series thanks to Andy Farrell’s inclusion of 15 Irish internationals in his British and Irish Lions squad.

In addition to Lions coaches Farrell and Simon Easterby, Paul O’Connell will take over as Ireland’s captain, and Craig Casey, a 26-year-old, will start as the team’s captain for the first time.

Although Tommy O’Brien, Michael Milne, Shayne Bolton, Ben Murphy, and Tom Ahern have all had senior experience, none have ever been capped at that level.

The other potential debutants, Alex Kendellen, Darragh Murray, Paddy McCarthy, Stephen Smyth, and Hugh Gavin, have all been called up after impressing in the Emerging Ireland squad and the United Rugby Championship’s September tour of South Africa.

Jack Crowley and Sam Prendergast will square off for the starting fly-half jersey after losing to the Lions.

The 32-man Irish squad has only two players over the age of 30 compared to prop Finlay Bealham and center Stuart McCloskey, who are the only ones who are older than that.

In the squad are wing Jacob Stockdale, back row Nick Timoney, and prop Tom O’Toole, hooker Tom Stewart, and versatile forward Cormac Izuchukwu.

Although James McNabney, Jude Postlethwaite, and Zac Ward, the Ulster trio’s trainers, Rob Herring and second row Iain Henderson, who have recently recovered from injury, were not included in the panellists.

O’Connell, who won 108 Irish caps as a player, claimed that the tour “offers an opportunity” for underclassmen to impress the coaching staff.

For what will be a trip into relatively unexplored territory this July, he said, “I think we have a strong combination of youth and experience.”

“It’s important that everyone understands the challenge that lies ahead of them because a number of players have recently been very close to selection.”

There is a great opportunity for players to step up and impress, according to the coach, “every moment on the training field and throughout the two-match series will count.”

O’Connell added that Georgia has made “significant progress” in recent years, and he anticipates a difficult test from Portugal, which Ireland will encounter for the first time.

He added that Casey’s selection as the tour’s captain was justified by scrum-half.

He is a real leader with a charismatic personality, O’Connell continued, “He is a very special person.

Backs: Shayne Bolton (Connacht), Craig Casey (Munster), Jack Crowley (Munster), Nathan Doak (Ulster), Hugh Gavin (Connacht), Stuart McCloskey (Ulster), Calvin Nash (Munster), Jimmy O’Brien (Leinster), Tommy O’Brien (Leinster), Jamie Osborne (Leinster), Sam Prendergast (Leinster), and Jacob Stockdale (Ulster).

Panelists for training are Zac Ward (Ulster), Jude Postlethwaite (Ulster), and James McNabney (Ulster).

Fixtures

Georgia vs. Ireland on Saturday, July 5 at the Mikheil Meskhi Stadium in Tbilisi (kick off at 18:00 BST).