Soccer
Michael Carrick insists Manchester United’s start to season is ‘not that bad’
Manchester United head coach Michael Carrick insisted his side’s start to the season was “not that bad” despite Everton’s added-time equaliser leaving them with just four points from three matches.
Despite twice taking the lead through Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko, United were pegged back by maiden Everton goals for Tyrique George and deadline-day signing Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who scored in the sixth minute of added time to seal a 2-2 draw.
While Carrick said he was “bitterly disappointed” with the result, he did not think their points return, which already puts them five points behind leaders Manchester City, was the worst start.
“We haven’t started the season that bad. It’s not that bad, we’ve got that close to coming away with three points today; that’s football,” he said.
“There are moments we can deal with a bit better, but we’ll be fine.
“We’re bitterly disappointed to be up in the position we were in the game twice, so close to the end.
“All the work that went into putting us in that position at different stages to then come away like that – it’s not a great feeling. It feels like a defeat.
“It’s a bit of a cliche to say at this stage but we have taken the point and we can’t ignore that but it feels like we should have had a lot more.
“The mentality is there. I think there’s obviously things we need to get better at as a team.
“There’s been two strikes from distance really, two really good strikes from their point of view, so sometimes they fly in the top corner and more often than not they probably don’t.
“Obviously we can’t ignore it, we need to concede less goals to give us a better chance of winning games, but we’ll certainly look at that and keep improving.”
Despite being behind twice, Everton manager David Moyes still felt his side were worthy of a point and possibly even more.
“For periods of the game we played pretty well but I thought Manchester United played better than in other games,” he said.
“I didn’t think we deserved to be behind but we lost the first goal a minute into the second half, which was shabby, then we never got the ball back and allowed them to go 2-1 up but it would be hard to say we didn’t deserve anything.”
Maitland-Niles, a £4million deadline-day signing from Lyon as a solution to Everton’s long-term right-back problem, scored 20 minutes after coming off the bench for his debut to completely flip the mood at Hill Dickinson Stadium.
“Was it a big moment? Yeah. But it didn’t feel as big for me as I wanted to win. I was happy to get the point but still a bit disappointed. I need to win my home games when I can,” added Moyes.
On the 20-year George, Moyes said: “I don’t know who you made man of the match but he was close, he caused them a problem early on.
“He is a young winger and he will need time to develop. He is a boy who wants to learn and we like him.”
