The 31-year-old has emerged as one of Sir Alex Ferguson's most important players, despite going under the radar while other, more high-profile names, grab the glory.
Only Robin van Persie, with 42 appearances, has figured more for the champions-elect this season - Carrick has played 41 times, including in all but one of their 32 Premier League games.
United fans have recognised the Geordie's enduring value, with a chant comparing him to Old Trafford legend Paul Scholes:
"As a footballer, if you do things that people outside the club want or expect you to do, you're not going to be successful.
"As it turns out, I've been here nearly seven years now and been successful. That's my main focus and anything outside of that is out of my control."
Since joining United from Tottenham for £16million in 2006, Carrick has won four titles, one Champions League, one League Cup and one Club World Cup.
The one competition to elude him - and almost all of Ferguson's current squad - is the FA Cup, which is why this season's quarter-final defeat to Chelsea was so hard to take.
"It hurts," said Carrick. "I've come close, I've played in the final and lost, been in semi-finals and, for whatever reason, it hasn't fallen for us and we haven't been able to win it.
"It hurts because this club should be winning the FA Cup, especially having had such a successful period over the last six, seven, eight years.
"For a club like this not to win it over that period of time is criminal. It hurts the players because not many of us have won it.
"It does get mentioned because we're desperate to win it. It's what I grew up watching. The FA Cup was the game of the season when I was younger and such a special day.
Carrick said United's exit from the Champions League last month stung too, as they had contained Real Madrid both at the Bernabeu and for the first half at Old Trafford, only to see the tie change and slip away when Nani was controversially sent off.
"It hurts because we want to win and we have come close to winning it more than we have, in terms of the two Champions League finals we've lost," said Carrick.
"We've taken a lot of stick for that but we were there to be shot at, as we were there in the final. We managed to get to three finals in four years, which shows we're doing something right.
"We want to get back to those occasions. It's been too long. Having had that spell of three [finals] in four years, we want to be there again.
"Hopefully it can be next year. We felt we had a good chance this year and it didn't work for us, for obvious reasons, but we'll go again next year."
United take on West Ham at Upton Park on Wednesday - a win over one of Carrick's former clubs will put them within four points of title No.20.
The United boss said: "We have no injuries from Sunday against Stoke. It was a tough game, certainly. But there were no injuries and that's a blessing of course.
"We have a good, strong squad. We took 20 players with us to Stoke and those 20 players will go with us again on Wednesday night."
More Info: [Live -] Online - TV] NK Inter Zapresic - NK Istra 1961 - Croatian League
No comments:
Post a Comment