The Manchester United squad have been in Dubai for the past week for some warm weather training. First team coach Michael Carrick has spoken about the benefits of getting away from Manchester in preparation for the final months of the season.
It’s fantastic. It allows us to train in a way where you probably can’t do it at home, at this moment, with it being so cold. We can work on different things. When it’s freezing cold at home, you’ve got to keep on the move and you don’t want the lads standing around too much.
So here we’ll work hard, especially over the next few days, and prepare for Sunday, but it allows us to maybe spend a little bit more time on the training ground and go into a little bit more detail, which we need at this moment. As you can imagine, it’s quite a happy camp. When you’re winning football matches, you can’t put a price on the feeling that gives you, and the confidence and the belief.
Carrick has sung the praises of new manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and talked about the impact his presence is having on the players.
Ole’s got that personality that rubs off on everybody, he’s so positive, he’s so upbeat all the time. I think you can see that rubbing off on individuals, and that goes a long way to bringing the best out of the players.
Carrick has also reflected on his playing days with Solskjaer, recalling his Manchester United debut was the game that our manager scored his first goal after returning from what once looked like a career ending injury.
He was having trouble with injuries a little bit, at the time, but his first goal back at Charlton away was actually my debut, so we were talking about that the other day.
There’s a photo of that knocking about somewhere, when he taps one in at the back post. His attitude to training, to playing, was the the thing that I remember most, and how high his football intelligence was, and how much you take into the game from learning and talking about the game. His dedication was top drawer.
