This Geordie boy was, after all, still only a teenager when he uprooted from his home town of Newcastle to move to Essex in 1996. Saturdays spent watching his beloved Magpies at the Gallagher End were swapped for a professional contract in the East End.The change was difficult and demanding, but it was also exactly what Carrick wanted. “I was going to different clubs for trials,” he says, “but I liked it here straight away. Right from my very first visit, they made me feel really welcome. With some clubs, you’re only one more off the production line. But at West Ham everyone is treated well and given a fair chance to succeed.”Harry Redknapp was the man who first handed Carrick the opportunity to shine, but few have had as profound an understanding of the player as the new manager. Glenn Roeder was a coach at West Ham for three years before he took over the reins in the summer, and he still remembers the first time he set eyes on Carrick.

“When you come into a new club you’re obviously looking at everybody, but Michael really stood out,” he recalls. “He caught my attention immediately because he was tall, calm and assured, both on and off the pitch. He has real class about him and that’s not something you can teach anybody.”Now that he has a full Premiership season’s experience under his belt and is one of the first names on Roeder’s team-sheet (Paolo di Canio would not be amused if he lost that particular privilege), it is easy to say that Carrick made the right choice five years ago. At the time, though, the 15-year old was taking a gamble – the sort of risk that has helped him develop so rapidly. “I have no doubt that my leaving home at such a young age has helped me get into the first team quicker,” he says. “When you come away early you learn to be your own person, and that has translated itself on the pitch.

I think you’ve got to be confident if you’re going to play for the first team as a kid You’ve got to have that extra bit of self-belief. But that suits me because I’ve always felt the need to prove what I can do as an individual.”The move from Tyneside to the big city was something of a culture shock, but Carrick took it all in his ample stride. “There’s a massive difference between the two places and it was difficult at first,” says the Geordie, who started with the same junior team as Alan Shearer, Wallsend Boys’ Club. “But there was an Australian lad with me at the time so I figured that if he could come this far then I could handle the change as well I’ve no regrets. They play good football here and that suits me.”So, too, would a berth in the England squad for the World Cup finals. More creative than Frank Lampard, more versatile than Nicky Butt, more experienced than David Dunn, and stronger than the likes of Joe Cole, Gavin McCann and Sean Davis, Carrick has every chance, believes Roeder, of making Sven Goran Eriksson’s final 23 “He’s definitely ready for the World Cup,” he says.