Carrick Dismisses Favourable Start Talk as United Prepare for Hull
Michael Carrick is having none of it. Hull away, Ipswich at home – on paper it looks kind, but the Manchester United manager dismissed the idea that his side have been handed a soft launch to the new season.
“For all of us to know this league, there’s no favourable start, I think it’s a tough start,” he said, leaning firmly into the realities of the Premier League rather than the fixture list fantasies. “A promoted team away from home is a tough game.”
United open at Hull on Saturday before welcoming Ipswich to Old Trafford the following Sunday, both opponents fresh from promotion out of the Championship. To some, that reads like a gentle easing-in. To Carrick, it reads like a trap.
“I’ve been involved in them in the past so I’m fully aware of what’s coming at us on Saturday, what we’ve got to be ready for,” he said. “So it’s not favourable. It’s an easy thing to throw out there. But it’s pretty ridiculous in a certain way, [we are] not taking it that way at all.”
He knows how these games go: tight grounds, noisy crowds, promoted sides playing with nothing to lose and everything to prove. United might carry the bigger name, but Carrick is determined his players don’t walk into a fight expecting a stroll.
Title talk and the ‘next jump’
Carrick’s stance on the fixtures feeds into a wider theme: expectation. He dragged United to third place last season, first as an interim from January, then as the permanent appointment four months later after turning the club’s campaign on its head.
That surge has inevitably sparked the next question. Can United go one better – or two – and win the title?
“It is going to be a jump,” the 45-year-old admitted. “I would never say we can’t – I don’t believe that. But it’s about what we are capable of doing as a group.”
The numbers from last season back up his optimism, but he is wary of assuming progress just happens because a team finished well. The word he keeps returning to is “step.”
“The run of form we had last season gives us a lot of confidence, but we know there is a whole new step to make. We are pushing to do that. It’s exciting. We have the potential to achieve things and we will definitely give it everything we can. We have to believe we are a good team and can do good things.”
That belief, in his mind, has to show up first in places like Hull, not in grand statements about May.
Transfer push: Baleba and a left-back on the radar
Off the pitch, United are still trying to arm Carrick for that next step. The club are hopeful of landing Brighton midfielder Carlos Baleba for a fee below £75m, a move that would add legs and bite to the middle of the pitch.
They are also active in the market for a left-back, conscious that depth and balance in that area could prove decisive over a long season.
“We are looking to strengthen the squad, working towards that,” Carrick said. “We are trying to make the most of the opportunities to finish the window stronger than we went into it and are in a good way to doing that so far.”
It is a clear message: last season’s revival was a start, not a finished product. Recruitment now has to match the ambition he keeps hinting at.
Mount a doubt for Hull
Team selection for the opener may be complicated by Mason Mount’s fitness. The midfielder is a doubt for the trip to Hull after picking up a knock, leaving Carrick to weigh up whether to risk him at the first time of asking.
If he misses out, it will only reinforce the manager’s point. There are no free hits in this league, no easy introductions for promoted clubs, and no room for a United side with title aspirations to treat the opening weekend as anything other than a serious examination.
