Michael Carrick will never scream like crazy at his players in the tough times, according to his former Middlesbrough striker Emmanuel Latte Lath.

Carrick is enduring a difficult start to the season, with United winless in five games in all competitions and having only tasted victory twice so far in their troubled campaign.

But Latte Lath says Carrick’s calmness is his greatest strength and thinks his powers of communication can help.

“From my experience, when we were in a difficult situation, he never screamed like crazy, he just tried to analyse the moment and analyse the players and help us talking, like saying, ‘Okay, now we're in a difficult moment, we have to try to lose this, this, this.’ This was the main thing because he knew how to listen to us and also how to spoke with us.”

Latte Lath, who is now at Union Berlin, was signed by Carrick in 2023 and went on to score 29 goals in 67 games for Boro before being sold to Atlanta FC for an MLS record fee of $22m.

And he praised Carrick for helping him improve during his 18 months at the Riverside.

“Calm, calm, calm coach, and observe and looks at everything and observing it and he tries to bring the best of myself, so I think it's the main thing, it's I have to say that this word is observer - yeah, observer.”