"He can be a really top manager in the future if he gets the chance," Bruno Fernandes said about the departing Michael Carrick in December 2021.
Fernandes was convinced his former coach who had worked closely with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and excelled in a stint as a caretaker boss at Manchester United would succeed.
Carrick's recent nomination in the Championship Manager of the Season shortlist is the latest indication that the Portuguese playmaker was spot on in his assumption.
To say that Carrick has overachieved in his first permanent managerial role at Middlesbrough would be underselling his transformational impact on Teesside.
The club were just one point above the relegation zone in October but when they took their chance on the 41-year-old, but are now set for a finish in the playoffs after pushing Sheffield United hard for the second automatic promotion spot.
Staving off the disaster of relegation could have been seen as job complete in challenging circumstances for Carrick at the Riverside during his first season at the helm.
But the under-utilised former England international has given Middlesbrough a fighting chance of reaching the Premier League and his stock continues to rise.
His implementation of a fluid possession-based system has been a huge success story in the North East.
"He knows how to speak, he knows a lot about football," Fernandes had said. "He was one of the great players that not a lot of people talk about. For what I have seen, for me he can be a top coach."
Carrick's approach to management has no doubt not only been influenced by his former colleagues Solskjaer and Jose Mourinho but also his ex-United boss Sir Alex Ferguson.
Ferguson first signed Carrick in 2006 from Tottenham Hotspur and the unproblematic but virtuoso midfielder won five Premier Leagues and the Champions League at Old Trafford.
And the legendary Scot always knew Carrick was destined for big things in football as soon as he signed him.
He was so highly regarded at United both as a player and in a coaching capacity and it will be no surprise to Ferguson seeing his former favourite thriving in the managerial hot seat.
"From the minute we bought Michael in 2006, his character has always been outstanding. He's a football man and that character, coupled with his ability, made him a certainty to be a big success at United," Ferguson once said.
He added: "One of the things that stuck out to me when we were profiling him and preparing to make a bid was that as a young boy, 16 years of age, he left home to play for West Ham," Ferguson once said. "That tells you that the boy had the confidence that he was going to make it."
