Michael Carrick has warned his players that Manchester United cannot rely on fifth place being enough to qualify for the Champions League again next season.
United face Aston Villa at Old Trafford on Sunday with the two rivals starting the weekend in third and fourth place in the table respectively.
The top five English clubs qualified automatically for the Champions League this season – with Newcastle securing an extra spot based on the performance of Premier League teams in Europe – and it’s likely to be a similar scenario next season.
But Carrick has told his players not to take that for granted and aim as high as possible as they battle with Villa, Chelsea and Liverpool for the top places behind leaders Arsenal and Manchester City.
‘We just need everything we’ve got fully flat down on the floor, there’s no other way,’ he said.
‘It might change, it might not. There needs to be quite a big swing for it to not be fifth but, ultimately, that’s not something that we can control.
‘Ideally, we’d like to be fighting above that anyway. So we’re not in the mindset of what’s going to be enough.
‘It’s literally game by game and trying to win. It sounds really obvious, but you can’t plan for if you finish fourth or fifth. You’re going to the next game, and we’re all in on this game.
‘It’s not something you can plan for really is what I’m getting at. So if we keep our heads up, be really positive and focus on what we can achieve and try and move up the table, it’s a lot better place to have that mindset for.’
United go into the Villa game on the back of a defeat at Newcastle, their first in eight matches since Carrick returned to the club as head coach.
The 44-year-old expects a response from his player, adding: ‘We don’t like defeats, don’t like them at all. We want to win every game, but there’s definitely putting things into perspective a little bit.
‘The boys have responded really well. They were disappointed after the game, as you’d expect. But we’re not making more of it than needs to be made of it.
‘We’re a good team when we do the right things and we’ve got really good players. We’ve proved that recently, and we need to keep proving that.’
