Michael Carrick will hang up his boots at the end of this season and take a permanent spot on Manchester United’s bench as part of the coaching staff.

His impact behind the scenes has already been hailed by Paul Pogba, while reports claimed he gave individual advice to players at half-time at the Etihad when United came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2.

The most important quality is to be a man. M-A-N, capitals – a proper man. Football is not full of them, and not just football, society is not full of them, so when you find one of them you have to value and you have to keep.

In this case it’s not about me, it’s about the club. The club had a great many years from him playing football. Now, when his body says ‘It’s enough’, the club and myself want to keep the man. He has qualities that we believe can make him a good coach, and there are many ways to do the bridge between being a player and on the coaching staff. Some guys prefer to have a couple of years to study or go to youth football. In this case, we decided he could change shirts, dressing-rooms and offices, and to stop being a player and become an assistant.

I give my assistants very good conditions for their evolution and I think Michael can be very positive for us.