Michael Carrick insists he is not worried about facing a potential rival for the Manchester United manager’s job when Oliver Glasner brings his Crystal Palace side to Old Trafford on Sunday.
When United sacked Ruben Amorim at the start of January, later naming Carrick as boss until the end of the season, Glasner – who will leave Selhurst Park at the end of the season – was among the favourites to get the job on a full-time basis come the summer.
The Austrian’s star has dimmed a little since then given Palace went through a nine-game winless run in the league before winning two of their last three, while Carrick has overseen a revival in United’s fortunes, winning five of his six games in charge.
Another win on Sunday would only strengthen the argument that the former United skipper is the man to take the club forward for the long term, but he said he had given no thought to the significance of facing Glasner.
Carrick was an assistant to then interim United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer back in January 2019 when a 1-0 away win over Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham did much to help the Norwegian get the job on a permanent basis at a time when Pochettino was a strong candidate.
But asked if there were any parallels, Carrick said: “Honestly, it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. It’s total respect for Crystal Palace and Oliver, and in terms of the team that they are and the role that they’re doing.
“That’s no disrespect, it’s the next game for us and we’re in a position where we found ourselves at, and we’re in a decent spot, and we feel like we’re moving forwards. It’s just about what’s in front of us, and trying to get to where we want to be, which is a little bit higher the league.
“That’s literally all that I’m worried about at the moment.”
Carrick has only been in charge of United for six weeks, and the club did not make any signings during the January transfer window to leave him working with the squad that had struggled under Amorim.
That only makes the turnaround in results he has achieved more impressive, but the 44-year-old believes there is still much room for improvement.
“I think it always evolves, it’s never perfect,” he said. “I’ve said that I always kind of hope for more and I think part of it is understanding of how little time still we’ve been together.
“Sometimes it’s going to go well and there’s going to be times where it doesn’t quite click so much.
“I think it’s not to be over-picky and over-harsh on certain things and actually taking perspective and a bigger picture is important for us.
“I think we’re in a we’re in a good place. In some ways we’ve made big strides, winning games that we might not have won at other times, played some good football at times, things to improve at times.
“Defending really, really well a lot of the time and you know, keeping clean sheets, so there’s lots of positives. There’s so many layers of of kind of levels that we feel we can get to as a group, so we’ll just keep pushing for that.”
