After a 24 day break from football thanks to international games and Manchester United’s early exit from cup competitions, the club return to action on Monday night to take on rivals Leeds.
Speaking to the press ahead of the game, Michael Carrick has reflected on what the game means to the supporters.
I only ever played in the one League Cup game, which was away. I didn’t play in the FA Cup game which was at Old Trafford, but I am fully aware of the history and I have watched plenty of games in the past. I know what it means to so many people, the supporters and the rivalry, it’s great. It’s part of football and why we love it. For us going against them and them coming against us, we are really looking forward to the game. Every game is a little bit different, some more normal than others, but when some have a little bit of a twist and bit of difference about it, you have to embrace it and this is certainly one of them.
United went to Dublin for some training away from Manchester during the break and Carrick has confirmed the squad is looking good in terms of injuries, including Diogo Dalot who didn’t make the trip to Ireland.
We are in good shape. The boys came back generally from internationals in a good way, so that is pleasing, especially when they go away and play so many games. When you have so many that go away, you are always hoping they come back okay and for the most part they have, so we are happy with that. He [Dalot] is okay and back with the group. That’s another positive as well.
It has been confirmed next season that there will five Champions League places for Premier League clubs, which puts United in a great position to play in Europe’s elite competition next season.
It’s great. It’s where we want to be, first and foremost, not so much the other teams but it is important. The more opportunities we have for that, the better. We would obviously like to finish as high up the league as we possibly can and to have so many English teams involved in it and in that competition, pushing, it then benefits the teams in the league and overall it is fantastic. But overall, we get quite selfish when it comes to things like that. It is where we want to be for ourselves more than anything.
