Michael Carrick has stoked Sunday’s Old Trafford derby by dismissing Elliot Anderson’s ‘Kings of Manchester’ taunt.
Anderson made the claim after joining Manchester City for £116million from Nottingham Forest this summer, having been a target for United as well.
But Carrick brushed off the England midfielder’s boast before the two clubs clash again in the 199th Manchester derby, and warned United’s neighbours that he is making progress.
‘I’m definitely not using that phrase at all,’ said the United boss, who began his tenure with a 2-0 win over City at Old Trafford in January on the way to earning the job full-time.
‘Talking about the expectation there, I think it’s a really good thing that it’s shifted in a way. All of a sudden there’s different things asked of us now to a few months ago, and we’re in the Champions League.
‘That in itself shows the steps we’ve made, and we need to be in the later stages of that. We’re humble and realistic enough to know where we’ve come from in recent history, and we need to be – and want to be – better and we want to be challenging more.
‘It doesn’t mean that we can’t and we won’t. It means we still hope, we believe, and we expect that we can, but I understand the bigger picture.’
Looking back on the win over City in January, just three days after returning to Old Trafford as head coach, Carrick admitted that it was always his intention to land the job on a permanent basis.
‘I was always planning to be,’ he added. ‘All the decisions we made were if we were going to be here for a period of time. I never knew how long that was going to be – I still don’t!
‘But you’re always planning for the future; what we want it to look like, and the direction we want to go. That was from day one.
‘Obviously, it was a quick turnaround and there was a bit of an unknown around that game. The expectation was quite fresh and everything was new. The players, maybe myself, the coaches were all waiting to see how it would go.
‘The performance the lads gave was incredible. From the start, we were planning to try and get this club to where we want to get it in the long-term.’
However, Carrick warned that the result in the last derby will have little bearing on Sunday’s game as he takes on new City boss Enzo Maresca.
‘It will definitely be different, just because no two games are ever the same,’ said Carrick.
‘There’s no way we’re assuming we won last season, so we’ll do the same things and everything will be the same.
‘I think the confidence that we’ve built over a period of time, and the feeling we’re getting better all the time, helps us.
‘We know it’s a big game. There’s a lot riding on it, it’s pretty obvious to say, but we’re looking forward to it.’
Carrick must decide whether to risk Luke Shaw after the left-back missed Thursday night’s Champions League win over Sabah.
‘We’ll have to see,’ he added. ‘We just looked after him a little bit. He wasn’t quite ready for it 100 per cent, so we didn’t risk it. We’ll see how he is over the next couple of days.’
CHRIS WHEELER
