In preparation for the first match of his second stint as Manchester United Head coach Michael Carrick has described Old Trafford as a “magical place”.
Few imagined he would put in such a complete performance against Manchester City. Pep Guardiola admitted his side could have been beaten even if Diogo Dalot had been sent off in the opening minutes.
Carrick has now added Guardiola’s name to a list of managers he has beaten as United head coach, which also includes Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta. He also drew with a Chelsea team managed by Thomas Tuchel.
As he left the pitch to the song United fans created for him when he arrived as a player in 2006, Carrick was able to reflect on a day that could hardly have gone better.
“It’s a good start, there’s no escaping it,” he said, smiling.
Carrick is clearly not Ruben Amorim. It’s just not his way to deliver headline-grabbing sound bites. He doesn’t have the same smile as the Portuguese and doesn’t liven up his media engagements with laughter. It’s also been around long enough to not get too carried away with the outcome of a high profile match.
“Consistency is the key to any success,” he said. “If you can find out you are on the right path.
“We’re not going to have games with the emotion and feeling that we brought today. We all understand that.
“But there’s certainly a standard and an expectation that we have to meet. That’s our challenge.”
Carrick and his family have remained United season ticket holders even though it has been more than a decade since he last played for the club.
This season he appeared as a TV pundit and analyzed his former team’s matches.
He couldn’t have known that Amorim would be sacked, nor that he would leapfrog his former boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and get the chance to guide United to the end of the season, but he had an idea in mind on how to get the best out of United’s players.
It wasn’t Amorim’s back three. This involved Kobbie Mainoo, the most obvious victim of Amorim’s rigid approach, which even United’s managers ultimately felt was not helping the club achieve consistency.
“I watched a lot,” Carrick said. “We have season tickets so my family comes and I’ve been to a lot of games lately. You get to know the players and your own eye.
“Everyone has an opinion and there’s your instinct. It’s obviously something that kicks in when you think maybe it’s my job to do something about it.”
The reward came from Mainoo’s industry alongside Brazilian veteran Casemiro, in a midfield pairing that Amorim never really gave the impression he trusted.
“Kobbie was great alongside Casa,” Carrick said. “Between the two of them, it gave us a foundation.”
Then there was the performance of Harry Maguire, starting his first game since November 8, helping his central defense partner Lisandro Martinez dominate Erling Haaland to such an extent that Manchester City’s xG of 0.45 was their second lowest in 364 Premier League games under Guardiola.
“It was a big ask from H and that’s to his credit,” Carrick said.
“We could sometimes take for granted what players do. He’s literally trained for two or three days in the last eight or nine weeks, so it was a bit of a calculated gamble on how long he could play.
“But he came through it and he was fantastic.”
Carrick even received plaudits from former skippers Gary Neville and Roy Keane, who sparked suspicion and criticism over his appointment in recent days.
“Michael Carrick is over the moon,” Neville said on Sky Sports. “Manchester City can’t believe it. Massive figures, (Gianluigi) Donnarumma, Rodri, Haaland shaking their heads and the biggest of them all, Pep Guardiola – stunned. They have been in tatters.
“It was a perfect afternoon for United,” added Keane. “It’s not like they were lucky.”
Former United striker Wayne Rooney told BBC Sport: “The fans have been deprived of that over the last few years. I know it’s just one performance but I think everyone can see how exciting this team can be.
“You hear everyone, especially us as ex-players, talk about the DNA of United and it just showed what it is. The work rate without the ball, the wingers coming back to replace and help the full-backs.”
United hit the woodwork twice, had three goals disallowed for offside and Donnarumma made four excellent saves. His second-half reaction effort to deny Casemiro as he tried to collect the rebound, after an early save from Amad Diallo, was so good that the Brazilian found himself biting his jersey in frustration.
There has been a lot of talk this week about which managers United should try to sign this summer and how Carrick should be seen as nothing more than a stopgap.
Yet these opinions ignore the wave of emotion created by performances and results.
For the first time in what seems like a very long time, Old Trafford resonated with the noise of fans responding positively to a team giving their best and implementing a game plan which, in the context of this 40-game season, was enough to secure a victory in a very important match.
“The players definitely benefited from it,” Carrick said. “They left the locker room incredibly desperate to do well. I was almost thinking don’t be too desperate because it can cloud your judgment and you make decisions because you’re so emotionally invested in it.
“But they found the right balance and the fans were incredible.
“I said yesterday that it can be a magical place. It does fun things and getting that feeling was exactly what we wanted.
“It’s something we have to build on. We don’t get carried away massively, but you have to enjoy the feeling when you have it.”
Source | domain www.bbc.com
