Michael Carrick: What’s it like to be caretaker manager?

When Manchester United sacked Ruben Amorim on 5 January, the club approached academy chief Darren Fletcher as a temporary replacement, giving the opportunity to a young coach at the start of his managerial career.

Phil Brown, the former Hull City, Derby County and Preston North End coach, was given his first chance in similar circumstances following the shock departure of Colin Todd as Bolton manager in 1999.

The Bolton hierarchy offered him a temporary job, but despite making improvement on the pitch, the club had other ideas for a permanent appointment.

“Colin Todd decided to resign, which left the club in a difficult situation, because they were not expecting that,” Brown told BBC Sport. “I made my case that I wanted the job and got the job of interim coach for five games. I won four of them.

“Unfortunately, I went to an emergency board meeting on the Sunday after the fifth game and walked into the manager’s office and Sam Allardyce was sitting in my chair.

“I didn’t want the job, but I’d worked with Sam before and they were hoping we’d work together again. It was a tough situation at first because I really pushed for my name to be the first to actually drop to number two.”

Brown worked as Allardyce’s assistant for six years before being appointed manager of Derby County. After leaving Pride Park he was brought in to assist Phil Parkinson as first team coach at Hull City.

Parkinson, then in his second full-time role, was subsequently sacked with the Tigers’ 22nd in the Championship, and club owner Adam Pearson turned to Brown as caretaker.

However, he initially turned down the job after feeling he had let down Parkinson, who is now manager of Wrexham.

“I went there to help him stay on the job, and when he lost his job, I got into the caretaker role and I didn’t want that,” Brown said.

“I didn’t want to because I had failed at what I came to the football club to do, which was to keep Phil Parkinson sitting at work, and I felt as if I had let him down.”

But after three wins and a draw in his first six games as caretaker manager, results made it difficult for the club hierarchy not to offer Brown a full-time position, and in 2008 his side earned promotion to the Premier League.