Carrick Talk

Michael Carrick was delighted to be recognised by supporters around the world for his form last month, when he made seven starts and scored in both of United's home league games against Hull City (4-3) and Stoke City (5-0).

"It’s a huge honour, I think I’d prefer to win that than the Ballon d’Or!" Carrick told Red View, somewhat tongue in cheek.

"But seriously, thank you to everyone who voted on ManUtd.com. I've been getting more games, which has helped, and it's always nice to weigh in with a couple of goals."

Carrick would love to beat Sunderland on Saturday, more for United's cause than for his boyhood support of Newcastle.

"It’s important for us to win this game, and then against Tottenham next week before we go over to Japan for the Club World Cup. We don’t want to be any further behind in the title race when we go, and then we can come back and see how things lie.”

Sunderland are still reeling from Roy Keane's sudden departure on Thursday but Carrick admits it's hard to predict how the loss of their boss will affect the Black Cats.

“It can work both ways. Sometimes you can go through a period of turmoil like they have, particularly after last weekend’s result, and then let it get you down and have another bad result afterwards.
“On the other hand, you can use it positively and put in a great performance to make sure you bounce back from it all. But we have to ignore everything that’s happened at Sunderland and concentrate on ourselves.

"I’m sure that if we play like we can, then we’ll win the game. We tend to focus on ourselves more than others anyway, and there’s no reason to change that for Sunderland."



_----------------------------ReD VIEW-------------------------------------