Manchester United are giving serious consideration to withdrawing their offer of a new contract for Roy Carroll. The final say will rest with Alex Ferguson and the indications from Old Trafford are that he has run out of patience with the Northern Ireland international goalkeeper.
Carroll's position has been undermined by the mistake that led to AC Milan scoring the decisive goal in the first leg of their Champions League tie at Old Trafford, an aberration that led to Ferguson recalling Tim Howard for Saturday's 2-1 Premiership defeat of Portsmouth. Carroll did not even merit a place on the bench and is unlikely to be involved in Saturday's trip to Crystal Palace.
Ferguson, who has spent £19.1 million in six years trying to find a replacement for Peter Schmeichel, plans to give Howard an extended run and has already instructed the club's scouting network to concentrate their efforts on finding a new goalkeeper for next season. If they locate the right candidate, Carroll will almost certainly, like United's third-choice goalkeeper Ricardo Lopez, be surplus to requirements when his contract expires at the end of the season.
Carroll has already turned down an offer of a new three-year contract in the hope that if he played well it would persuade the club to improve the terms. It was a gamble that may have backfired.
"Roy's priority is to stay at Manchester United, but he has to get it clear in his mind what is happening on the goalkeeping front," his agent Francis Martin said last night.
"If the club brought in someone else they would then have three top-class goalkeepers and Roy could find himself in the situation where he has signed a new three-year deal and spends three years in the stands.
"Roy is going to work hard to try to regain his place. Okay, he's made mistakes but he's also had a number of good games. He's always been one to take up a challenge and if he gets another chance it's up to him. Tim Howard is back in the team now, but if Roy get an opportunity he intends to grasp it."
Filippo Inzaghi returned to full training with AC Milan yesterday after breaking a bone in his hand and hopes to be available for the Champions League return next Tuesday. "I hope I'll be available for the Manchester game but I need to be realistic," he said. "I haven't played for a long time and I only started running again today."
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)