Fair play to Michael Carrick, brutal honesty from the Manchester United boss after having been schooled by Eddie Howe.
Despite playing most of the match with ten men, Newcastle United the better team in the second half as well as the first.
United winning 2-1 despite the appalling match officials who did everything they could to help Man U win on Wednesday night.
Ahead of the match, Michael Carrick declared: “I have a huge amount of respect for Eddie and his staff. I know some of them particularly well. Being from there originally, I have kept a close eye on them. Eddie Howe has done a great job with the success he has brought to the club and the feeling he has created around the whole area. He’s a top man and a top coach.”
Since his appointment in January, the Manchester United manager and his players have carried a lot of luck but having won six games and drawn the other, you can’t argue with their form since he was appointed.
Michael Carrick happy to admit after the match that he and his players had been second best to Eddie Howe and his United players: “Newcastle deserved to win tonight, it hurts me to say that. That is how it was. We need to get back to work and be better for the next game.”
Showing such honesty, you have to wonder just how long he will last at a club like Man U…
Michael Carrick going on to say: “We are not happy the way we played tonight. The way the game panned out we had it in our hands largely but credit to Newcastle and they way they approached it, we knew it would be tough but we navigated the game to a position where we could kick on but we didn’t. Bitterly disappointed really.”
Anybody switching on just for the second half, would have had no idea that Newcastle United were playing with one less player, thanks to the shocking Peter Bankes, only deciding to give a second yellow and then a red, after the Man U players surrounded him.
Michael Carrick asked about Man U’s issues when playing against 10 men, as they lost at home to Everton in this fashion before he took over: “I don’t think it was the 10 men, we just didn’t play good enough. We can’t make excuses for that. We all take responsibility for that. It was just the quality of the performance, it wasn’t character or wanting to win, it’s easy to throw that just because you don’t win a game of football. We have lost one game, we haven’t played well enough but in the grand scheme of things we are in a decent position. Tonight hurts but we will be better for the next one.”
Newcastle United had the better of the game from the start, Eddie Howe getting his tactics, team selection and then later on, his substitutions, absoutely right.
The United players carrying out Howe’s instructions so well, their game management excellent.
Boyhood Newcastle United fan Michael Carrick gutted after how it turned out: “We are bitterly disappointed…it hurts. We came here in good shape and the way it panned out is very disappointing. There is no two ways about that. We need to learn from this…”