Manchester United interim manager Michael Carrick got off to a brilliant start as his side smothered Man City and won 2-0 in the derby.
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Carrick set up United to play direct with long balls forward and huge switches of play causing havoc for City. It worked a treat as Mbeumo, Amad Diallo, Bruno Fernandes and Patrick Dorgu were exceptional and City’s makeshift defense never looked comfortable as Pep Guardiola’s team played in to Carrick’s hands.
Here is the Michael Carrick reaction from Old Trafford.
Michael Carrick reaction
On a of talk this week about the history and DNA of Manchester United. Was that a proper Man United performance? “Yes, I don’t want to get carried away with all that DNA kind of thing,” Carrick told Sky Sports. “I think we wanted to play well today. We wanted to put things into the game that we felt would help us do that. Certainly want to be good defensively with the whole team. We felt that we had a threat when we had the ball on transition at times as well, but actually, when we did have the ball, I thought, we looked dangerous. So all round, I literally, you know, it’s an easy thing to say, we couldn’t ask for anymore. The boys give absolutely everything in so many ways, you know, three days to prepare little bits of information here and there, and they took everything on board tactically, and then emotionally, we were able to deal with it, exactly that we hoped for, really, and to feel that, like, we did towards the end, and the whole place, I said yesterday, it’s a magic place, and certainly was today, and we all felt that.”
On tactically how they did it: “I’m gonna say too much! Respect to Pep and he’s such an unbelievable, incredible coach. Such a good team. It’s not for me to pick them apart, kind of publicly, but, yeah, I think we wanted to play to our strengths and we needed to be compact, we needed distances to be as short as possible between the units and between positions, and we needed to move as a team, and I thought, largely, we did that. A few times, it got a little bit opened up, but we still looked dangerous on our front line. I thought the front four, the two wide lads were fantastic both ways. And then Bryan and Bruno and Matheus is coming on making a difference and Mason coming on again and nearly getting the goal. I thought in general everything kind of was what we kind of would hope for and hence getting the good result.”
On if that was almost as perfect as it can get: “Yeah, I think this as much as we could have hoped for, you know, to be honest, coming into the game, the change is not easy. Change is not easy for anyone, but to then have to perform on the back of it, I’ve had a real sense for the last few days, and especially before the game, how much the players were desperate and want to have that feeling and want to give success and a feeling to the supporters, I genuinely felt that before the game. If anything I was more concerned that that feeling was over the top, because they are so keen to do well, but I thought they managed the emotional side of the game unbelievably well. So that made me proud to see a team and what’s my team today and moving forward to have that feeling, it was great to see and then obviously to be able to put it all together was even better.”
On having won so much at United as a player, but was that win right up there: “Yeah, for so many reasons, I think that today was special. Putting things together quite quickly, coming in and trying to put a print on the team, but gather them together and emotionally get them all attached to what we want to do, and I felt that unbelievably from the staff, from the players. So that it made it a very special kind of day. I’m not getting carried away. It’s one game, so it’s really important that we don’t get carried away. It needs to be a regular feeling of that level of performance and that’s something we obviously got to get to in consistency. So I’m not getting carried away. It’s a great day, it’s a fantastic result, and there’s the element of certainly soaking up and enjoying it, but it’s definitely not enough. It’s never enough.”
On the credit his coaching staff deserve: “Huge amount. I mean, I’m standing here. I didn’t do all the work this week, you know, I’ve done a lot of the meetings and the main meetings and team meetings and maybe, you know, on the pitch and in front of the players a little bit more, but the intricacies of how much detail to give to certain players and individuals and bits of units, that’s a skill and that’s why they’re here as well because they’re fantastic coaches. Steve’s got a really calm head and so experienced and Jonathan and Johnny and Trav, I think we’ve got a real mix of what we can offer the players because that’s what it comes down to. What can we offer the players to make them better? You know, these three days you look at the result and you think, yeah, it’s worked. We got to keep building them now.”
