My «passion- discussion” with Manchester United - manager Carrick in writing Me: I guess in management there are so many buzzwords hanging around, like passion, intensity and “go for it”. But would you accept that there was a lack of passion in the first half? Michael Carrick: Oh, come on. That’s ridiculous. Me: That’s not how you assessed it? Michael Carrick: You played football. You understand. That’s a ridiculous thing to say. Just because you get beat doesn’t mean you don’t care about it. Me: No, I’m not saying that you didn’t care about it. I think the thing that came over, if you look at it, was that they came with passion. That’s what I mean. I understand that you care about it, but would you accept that they took you on that front, so to say? Michael Carrick: No, no. The two goals came from set plays. Other than that, we had opportunities. That was where the game was. I don’t think it was passion or anything to do with that. I think it was just their moments that made the difference in the game. Me: Is it these duels? Is that what you mean? That these two duels were the goals? Because they had chances. There were consequences there from the game that you could see that they would get at you. Michael Carrick: It’s a game of football, it’s a Premier League game. It’s their first game at home, and we’ve seen it many times before. You know, I said it before the game because it was always going to be a tough game. And set-plays, yeah, that’s it. We’ve been decent over a period of time at dealing with them, and today we didn’t. You know, we can look into that, we can dissect it. We certainly won’t get carried away with the positives or the negatives. We never do. So I think we can stay calm and understand what we need to get better at. Me: Because of the World Cup, it’s been a funny and short pre-season. Will the first game be used to adjust to that, to find your team, to find the way you want to play? Maybe new players in, or all the new players you already have in. Is it that kind of season? Michael Carrick: No, listen, just because the result went against us, you know, we don’t need to look into all sorts of different things. I think sometimes results can happen in football. We don’t want them to happen against us, of course we don’t. We understand inside what we need to get better at, and we will do. You know, we’ve added to the group. We’ve got a stronger group. Finding that rhythm, those connections, and keep moving forward. So one game won’t knock us from that. Me: I hate to ask about players, and I won’t do it and I’ll try to do it in a clever way. But I will say, when you see your team now, if you’re going to go into the market again, where would you like to go? Michael Carrick: We’re trying to improve the squad, so we’ll see what happens in the rest of the window.

Gary Neville to Sky Sports on Carrick decision: 'I’m surprised but I’m happy because I was absolutely certain that what I witnessed on Sunday would be the end of Michael. It looked like it when he was walking around at the end on his own like it was almost a goodbye lap.' #mufc