LONDON — Michael Carrick enjoyed Manchester United’s perfect UEFA Champions League return against Sabah but is “pushing for more” with tougher tests around the corner.
The match saw Old Trafford host a first match in European football’s premier competition since December 2023 as the Red Devils faced a club that was only founded nine years ago.
United ran out comfortable 4-0 victory against Sabah, the champions of Azerbaijan, with Matheus Cunha, Bruno Fernandes and Benjamin Sesko scoring first-half goals.
Lisandro Martinez tapped home to complete a blemish-free start to the league phase for Carrick’s men, who recorded their first clean sheet of the season having made a topsy-turvy start to the Premier League.
Asked if Thursday was the perfect way to kick off their long-awaited Champions League return, the United head coach said: “Yeah, I think so.
“Kind of what we set out to achieve, really. I think it was a good performance, individually, collectively, pretty much all the way through the game, from start to finish.
“Boys that started, boys that came on the pitch, clean sheet, some goals and some good, exciting football. It was a good night all round.”
United continue their Champions League campaign with October trips to Atletico Madrid and Como, but the immediate focus is on Sunday’s clash against rivals Manchester City at Old Trafford.
Carrick began his reign with a derby win in January and will look to build on the Sabah result a week on from being hit by a last-gasp leveller at Everton in the Premier League.
“We’re always pushing for more,” the United head coach said. “Results-wise, it hasn’t been the start we wanted.
“We wanted to have more points in the league but performance-wise there’s a lot of things in there that we were looking for and we’ve been pleased with.”
“And there’s certainly things to improve, you know. I think a clean sheet tonight was important for us.
“We’ve conceded goals in different ways – one goal is in the top corner and sometimes you can do things about it, sometimes you can’t to a point,” he added according to Press Association.
“But I think collectively as a team we’ve done a lot of good things, and that’s why we’re kind of excited about what the season brings, and not game-to-game so much of getting too carried away.
“We want to keep progressing through the season, we want to keep pushing.
“There’s slightly different things happening in the team now that we probably didn’t have last season, in a good way, that we’re trying to get out of the players, and they’re showing that in a good way, so it’s really encouraging for me.”
Sabah counterpart Valdas Dambrauskas says his side go home from Old Trafford with a sense of what could have been.
“We started quite well and I didn’t feel that we were shaking or scared,” he said. “We tried to play and I think all 90 minutes we tried to do that.
“In some moments we could find some rhythm. But we will all go home tonight thinking that we could do a little bit better, especially in the result.”
