Carrick responds to reporter’s accusation that he has a history of falling apart after good starts

Michael Carrick has been speaking to the media ahead of Manchester United’s trip to St James’ Park to face Newcastle United tomorrow.

One of the important questions to be covered was the fitness of Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw, who were both forced off the pitch against Crystal Palace due to illness.

Maguire and Shaw

Asked whether the pair will be available for tomorrow, Carrick replied:

“We’re hoping so. We’re working towards it. They weren’t feeling too good. So we’ve still got a bit of time to the game and we’ll just have to see how they feel. So we’ll obviously give them every chance.”

The reporter asked “Is it illness? Neither of them were injured or anything like that.”

“No, it wasn’t an injury,” he replied. “No, they just both weren’t feeling too good. So yeah, it’s one of them things, really. But we’ll just have to see how they are today and tomorrow morning.”

How to keep momentum going

The next question was about how when Carrick was assistant to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, there was a superb start then “there was a drop off towards the end of the season. When you were at Middlesbrough, you also did really well at the start and then the results didn’t match that at the end of the season. You didn’t achieve what you wanted to. Is there any way of guarding against that?”

The boss answered:
“Football is a tough game to get results anyway. So I think, yeah, of course, they’re learning. I learn, always learning and things that as you go through, and you could maybe have done a little bit different, done a little bit better, not specifically in them times, just in general, really. So there’s a lot of context and it depends on the players, the group of players, what the games will look like. There’s so many different things coming into it.”

“I think it’s not so much guarding against it. I think it’s just living in the moment and staying in the moment and keep grounded and down to earth in terms of understanding what it takes to win games. I’ve said that since I came here and not getting carried away. We certainly won’t get carried away. I think you’ve got to feed off the confidence and understand that runs of wins are hard to come by, but we’re hungry for more for sure. We need to try and make it as long as it can last and stay consistent.”

More to follow, refresh after a few minutes for updates …

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