Michael Carrick has revealed the nature of his contact with Ole Gunnar Solskj\u00e6r after United appointed Carrick to the interim manager role rather than his former teammate. Solskj\u00e6r had been a leading contender to return to the club he spent 11 years playing for and three years managing. Carrick, who was chosen instead, said the pair have maintained a supportive relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I spoke to him,\u201d Carrick confirmed ahead of United\u2019s clash with Premier League leaders Arsenal on Sunday. \u201cI\u2019m close, we\u2019ve been through a lot together, so he\u2019s been fully supportive as you\u2019d expect. He\u2019s some man and I respect him an awful lot. He wished us all the best and he was happy that we got the right result against Manchester City .\u201d<\/p>\n
Carrick noted that while he has friends he can call on, he is selective about seeking advice. \u201cWith friendships, you have conversations,\u201d he continued, having been probed on whether he\u2019d contact Solskj\u00e6r for advice. \u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of friends in places that I can kind of pick on if I need to be. I\u2019m not one that bothers a lot of people, to be honest. But he\u2019s certainly there if I ever need him.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Carrick\u2019s early choices in charge was to restore Kobbie Mainoo to the starting lineup for the derby with Manchester City. Carrick had been part of Solskj\u00e6r\u2019s coaching team previously, and his faith in the 20-year-old produced an energetic display that helped United win the game. Carrick also retained the 4-2-3-1 system used by caretaker Darren Fletcher, moving away from the 3-4-2-1 formation Ruben Amorim had tried to implement.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s victory over Manchester City was notable: they surrendered possession (32% to 68%) but were superior in organisation and pressing, restricting Erling Haaland to 14 touches before his withdrawal after 80 minutes. Carrick stressed the scale of the next task against Arsenal. \u201cIt\u2019s a big challenge, you know… they\u2019ve got so many strong points to their game, and to their squad,\u201d Carrick said. \u201cThey are where they are for a reason and where they are in the Champions League for a reason, so we\u2019re fully aware of that and not taking that lightly at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carrick: Solskj\u00e6r was supportive after missing out on interim job; Mainoo reinstated to start again<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,969],"tags":[1305,1047,1087],"class_list":["post-6228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-bench-selection","tag-champions-league","tag-coaching-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6228","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=6228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}