For the first Manchester derby in a decade without Pep Guardiola on the touchline, attention turns to another managerial meeting. After Guardiola stepped down from Manchester City at the end of last season, Sunday\u2019s match at Old Trafford will place Enzo Maresca opposite Michael Carrick.<\/p>\n
It is not the first time the two have crossed paths. Their previous encounters came before this Premier League setting, and before Carrick\u2019s current role at Manchester United. The head-to-head record already carries a clear edge for Carrick, who has twice got the better of Maresca.<\/p>\n
Their first meeting arrived in November 2023 in the Championship, when Middlesbrough hosted at the Riverside Stadium. That match was decided by a moment of quality from Sam Greenwood, whose 83rd-minute free kick proved enough to settle the contest. His strike, curled from long range into the top corner, was later chosen by fans as the club\u2019s Goal of the Season.<\/p>\n
The game itself was far less polished than the winning goal. It was a bruising, disjointed affair that produced seven bookings and 33 fouls, underlining how little rhythm either side managed to establish.<\/p>\n
When the fixture was reversed later that season at the King Power Stadium, Carrick again came out on top. Middlesbrough won 2-1, extending his perfect record in the pairing and giving him another result to lean on ahead of this latest derby occasion.<\/p>\n
With Maresca now preparing to face Carrick in a very different setting, the past meetings offer a useful reminder that this is not an unfamiliar rivalry. The names may be attached to a new stage, but the competitive pattern remains the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carrick has won both previous meetings with Maresca, and they meet again at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19363,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1249,179],"tags":[1458,182],"class_list":["post-19364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-championship","category-manchester-united","tag-championship","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}