Paul Merson disagrees with Michael Carrick’s positive assessment of Manchester United’s performance at Sunderland and is not optimistic about Manchester United next season.
United lost 0-0 to Sunderland, missing out on a chance to secure third place in the Premier League.
Despite the result, Carrick was positive about scoring, meaning United have lost just two of their last 15 games in all competitions.
“We got the point. It’s always good to keep a clean sheet. This season we’ve scored a lot of goals, we’ve created a lot of chances. This is just one of them, you know, a difficult game. It was a good enough point and we almost won it in the end,” he said.
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Paul Merson doesn’t understand why Bruno Fernandes won the Football Writers’ Player of the Year award over Declan Rice and Gabriel.
Sky Sports pundit Merson was surprised by Carrick’s positive comments after the match.
He said: “He wasn’t right. If you’re a Manchester United manager, you have to be honest and say: ‘We come here and expect to win.’
“I think it was a good result today, it wasn’t a good result or performance.
“I’m worried about next season. They’ll be in the Champions League and they look like a shallow team. (Mason) Mount will play in central midfield, with (Coby) Mainu and (Joshua) Zirkzee up front.”
“If we want to be in the top four next season, we need to invest in our players.”
Carrick praises attitude but calls for improvement
Sunderland will feel they deserved more given the balance of play, with Noah Sadiki and Brian Bobby thwarted by the excellent goalkeeping of Senne Ramens.
Manchester United’s only shot on target of the game came in the 92nd minute from Matheus Cunha, who was also ordered to dive in the closing stages.
“There were some changes today and I thought the spirit and attitude of the players as a whole was really good,” Carrick said.
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Highlights of the Premier League match between Sunderland and Manchester United
“After a long period of time, as we approach the end of the season, it’s easy to get exhausted and focus on finishing the season. Will it be a perfect game? Maybe we went into the game not expecting a perfect game and without understanding the situation and the changes.
“That’s the way it is. It’s something we have to overthink and not be negative at all because there’s not a lot of negatives. We understand that we can be a little bit better than we were at this particular time today.”
“We need to keep improving and keep trying. Let’s take the positives and play with confidence.
“It’s a tough league. It’s a difficult league to get results. We can just take one point from here today.”
He added at the press conference: “I still quite like[our performance]. A lot of things have moved to give us the foundation to play better in certain periods, but to keep getting a point and a clean sheet I think it’s good.”
Are Manchester United on the beach?
Carrick was asked how to avoid complacency at this stage of the season when the team has already achieved its goals, or is “on the beach”.
“When people criticize that, I almost get angry about it. The way the players prepared for the game, the way they left the changing room, we faced a tough game, but that’s OK. If we didn’t have enough brains and motivation, we would have lost the game today,” he said.
“Sunderland played really well at certain points in the game and made us work hard for it. So I don’t think the pride in ourselves and each other and the responsibility of playing and being part of this great club and of course the motivation and the focus, whether it’s today or the next two games, whether we’re going to do a great performance or maybe a performance that’s going to be a little bit more difficult. I don’t think that’s going to affect it at all.”
