Past and present greats combine as Manchester United thwart Brentford to all but seal Champions League

So the legacy a serial Champions League winner leaves at Manchester United looks like including Champions League football. For a man who conquered Europe as a United player, meanwhile, it looks like a passport to stay in the dugout and compete with the continent’s finest. United only need a maximum of two points to secure the top-five finish that, after a year of exile from Europe, will send them back in at the top level.

As Michael Carrick has rescued a season in remarkable fashion, it appears ever likelier the 2008 Champions League winner will be in charge then. But as Casemiro signs off, it can be in the knowledge a Real Madrid great has restored United to what both he and they would regard as their rightful destination. Brentford were beaten in part by the Brazilian to leave United 11 points clear of sixth-place Brighton.

Benjamin Sesko added to his 11th-minute opener but this was a victory forged by Carrick and Casemiro, aided and abetted by Senne Lammens , Bruno Fernandes and Harry Maguire . That blend of the returning and the departing, the new and the old has worked well in 2026. Carrick has found a formula; there may have been an irony that, for the second half, he switched to Ruben Amorim’s beloved 3-4-3 to prevent a Brentford fightback but it was another instance of a calm thinker getting a decision right.

The decision-makers in the directors’ box have got many a choice wrong but they can reflect with satisfaction on a couple that have paid off. Picking Carrick has paid off; his 13 games at the helm have now produced 29 points. And buying Lammens, who seemed a cheap afterthought last summer, has come to look inspired.