Michael Carrick has argued that beginning his interim tenure with two difficult fixtures helped focus Manchester United and catalyse the recent upturn in results. The derby with Manchester City arrived just four days after his appointment and, Carrick believes, concentrated the squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting the [Manchester City] game so quickly, it was step by step so I wasn\u2019t looking too far ahead,\u201d Carrick said on Thursday as he aims for four wins in a row this weekend, referencing the fact that the derby clash came just four days after he was appointed.<\/p>\n
He reflected on the context around his first matches. \u201cPeople saying at the time the first two games were standout games, expecting a tough start, and in some ways maybe that helped to get the whole group focused and alive, going into both games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t really look too far ahead, I couldn\u2019t allow myself to do that. But certainly over time, we got an idea of what we want it to look like coming through the door and certainly since we’ve been here, that comes a lot clearer, what direction we want to go in and how we want to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carrick and his coaching team say they \u201cfeel confident\u201d there has already been \u201ca lot of growth.\u201d The interim manager\u2019s three consecutive wins equal Amorim\u2019s longest winning run, a mark that underlines the improvement in results. The draft notes that Amorim took 11 months to record back-to-back Premier League wins for the first time, illustrating the earlier inconsistency.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s objective remains Champions League qualification for next season, meaning a top-four finish, though the piece points out that top five might suffice thanks to European Performance Spots handed out by UEFA to two countries each year as a reward. Champions League football carries both prestige and a financial premium; United have missed out on that competition in five of the past 10 seasons since 2016. The Europa League generates significantly less revenue, and no UEFA competition at all is worse for the club\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n
When Carrick took charge United were three points outside the top four. They are now fourth after maximum points in his three games, holding a one-point lead over Chelsea, who have also won three on the spin. Liverpool sit only one point further back in sixth, while the gap to Aston Villa in third has narrowed from 11 points to five. The competitiveness of that section of the table means maintaining recent standards is essential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carrick says tough early fixtures sharpened United, producing three straight wins and renewed belief<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,969],"tags":[1021,1047,1087],"class_list":["post-6551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-amorim","tag-champions-league","tag-coaching-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6551","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=6551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}