Michael Carrick is adored by the Manchester United fans here inside the Transfer Tavern.

United have certainly missed the cool head of the midfield captain this season in the midst of an injury-ravaged centre of the park. Indeed, he himself is out injured at the moment and our punters believe United could certainly use his experience at present, having only registered a single appearance this season.

As the new club captain United’s current longest server player has had a frustrating start to the season.

Carrick has given over 10 years of service to the Red Devils and is deep in the United fans hearts here at the Tavern aas he filled the void left by United legend Paul Scholes.

His range of passing and ability to bring calmness to what is sometimes a chaotic team gave, in our regulars’ opinions, manager Jose Mourinho no choice but to hand him the captaincy vacated by Wayne Rooney after he left in the summer.

However, after a nightmare campaign, our landlord believes that it’s time Carrick hung up his boots for good and here’s his three reasons why…

Out Of Contract

Carrick’s one-year extension is up at the end of the 2017/18 season and with his lack of game time this year it’s going to be hard to justify another year deal being sanctioned.

Although he is club captain, you feel the board are not going to want to pay out for a player who will be knocking on the door of 37 and not getting game time.

Likely to be on a fairly big wage, it’s not exactly cheap to keep him at Old Trafford,

Injuries

Injuries have majorly halted and hindered his first-team minutes this season, having only made one appearance and you can see that these little niggles are going to start being more and more frequent as the midfielder sneaks into his late thirties.

The last thing United fans want to see is for Carrick to go out on a whimper after the years of service and trophies he’s been involved in, though it’s hard to see him staying fit for an extended period of time.

Already replaced?

Mourinho brought in Nemanja Matic in the summer who plays in a similar mould to the England man and, although Matic is 29 years old, he’s got seven years on Carrick.

With United looking more pacey and youthful nowadays, the ageing Carrick may start to struggle with the pace and he’ll want to avoid a Gary Neville versus West Brom type of performance to signify the end of his career.