Michael Carrick responds to Roy Keane’s personal attack on him at City pre-match press conference

Michael Carrick says Carrick was attending his first press conference in his current interim role as Manchester United manager as he answered questions relating to tomorrow’s Premier League match with Manchester City at Old Trafford. The first question was “How have you found your first few days then as a Manchester United head coach, and how does it feel to be sat in that chair today?” “Very two different roles sat in this chair and in front of you;” he joked. “It’s very different, the role in coaching. Yeah, listen, it’s fantastic to be here. It’s a great feeling for me to be in this position. I think I played different roles for this club and learned to fall in love with the club for so long. It’s a massive part of my life and has been for so long. So I’m fully aware of the position I’m in in so many different ways.” “As well as that, I’m eager to succeed. We’ve got a big job to do. It’s an important job and it always is here to win games and to play well and to do it in a certain way. So there’s one side of it is nice to be here, but the other side of it is focus, concentration, and a real drive to improve the team and improve the results.” Carrick was asked “What does success look like then? Is it Champions League qualification? Is that what success will be?” He answered: “Yeah, I think improvement. I think certainly improvement, helping improve individuals. I think a big part of what I really enjoy is improving individuals. And in the end, I think if you improve the individuals, we create a better team.” “So certainly working with the players and improving them with that. I think, yeah, listen, results. That’s what it is. There’s an element of performance, there’s an element of what it takes to win in certain ways, in certain occasions. So certainly higher up the league, we finish, we want to keep pushing and finishing as high as we possibly can. We’ll see where that takes us. That’s it.” He was asked whether the leadership team had set any targets. “No, not in terms of it has to be this way or that way,” he answered. “Like I said, we want to be near the top. We want to be top of the league. I mean, that’s pretty obvious to say, but we got to take some small steps towards that. And European football, obviously, would be a step forward, and we’ve got to keep pushing.” More to follow, please hit refresh regularly for updates … The Peoples Person has been one of the world’s leading Man United news sites for over a decade. Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social Red Billy Red Billy is the managing editor of The Peoples Person, author of three books and two magazines and totally obsessed with football’s transfer market. Billy first saw United live in 1971, watching George Best, Bobby Charlton and Denis Law, before becoming a League Match ticket book holder from 1975/76 and a writer since 1995. Billy still insists Matteo Darmian and Alex Telles could have made it at United given half a chance.