Michael Carrick underlines key change at Man United since returning to club

Michael Carrick believes Manchester United have raised the expectations of the club since he returned to Old Trafford with a derby win in January.

Carrick faces Manchester City for the second time as a manager on Sunday after leading United back into the Champions League, a year after they finished 15th in the Premier League.

They came third last season, only one place behind their neighbours, and after Carrick beat Pep Guardiola’s City in his first game back in charge, he has gone on to earn the manager’s job and increase the demands put on United now.

“I think going into the Champions League game and talking about the expectation there, I think it’s a really good thing that it’s shifted in a way, and all of a sudden there’s different things asked of us now to maybe what was a few months ago, and we’re in the Champions League,” Carrick said.

“That in itself shows the steps we’ve made, and we need to be in the latter stages of that, and then the expectations around that.”

While Carrick tasted victory in his first derby in charge, he feels it is no guarantee his side make it a double when they meet Enzo Maresca’s City at Old Trafford.

“I think there’s no way we’re assuming we won last year, we’ll do the same things and everything will be the same,” he explained.

Carrick is waiting to see if Luke Shaw will be fit enough to feature after he sat out Thursday’s 4-0 win over Sabah in the Champions League.

He added: “We’ll have to see. We just kind of looked after him a little bit. He wasn’t quite ready for it 100 percent, so we didn’t risk it.”