Gary Neville believes Michael Carrick’s derby victory at Old Trafford showed Manchester United’s methods still work in modern football.
“This is one of the best performances I’ve seen from a Manchester United team in any era,” the Sky Sports pundit said on the Gary Neville Podcast after the 2-0 win over Man City.
With just three days of preparation, United’s new head coach has managed to revive a 4-4-2 and produced an expressive performance that reminded Neville of his former club.
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Free to watch: Highlights of Manchester United vs. Manchester City derby victory
“We’ve been made to believe we can’t play like Manchester United,” Neville added.
“For the last three, four, five years, I’ve been told, ‘Next, you can’t play that way anymore.’
“I’m sorry, but in modern football you can play like that. I just watched 90 minutes. It’s exactly the same 90 minutes that I think this club plays when they’re actually at their best.”
Neville added: “This is not the time to say Manchester United are going to keep going and climb the league. This should be a bridge to potentially get a European place. It would be great to get into the top five.”
“But this is not the return of Manchester United, or at least the return of something resembling a club. It’s really been a shoddy imitation all these years. It’s been terrible. Some of the performances here, you have to look at the good performances to be reminded of how bad it was.”
“Fernandes looked like Cantona”
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Watch Brian Mbeumo’s Manchester United opener
Brian Mbeumo’s opening goal came from a devastating counter-attack and great combination play with captain Bruno Fernandes, no longer restricted to playing as a holding midfielder.
“I got pretty emotional when I got that goal because I thought, ‘That’s what I wanted, that’s what everyone on this ground wanted.’
“I have to say those players set a standard for themselves today. They set a standard for themselves in their attitude, their aggression, their aggressiveness when they play with purpose, when they play by the line, everything. You can’t go below that.”
Neville felt that Fernandes was Eric “Cantona-esque” returning to the number 10 role after Ruben Amorim continued to stubbornly defend Fernandes as a deep midfielder.
“That’s where he has to play, close to the goal and where he can hurt them, because he’s a great player. We don’t want to see him go back to the midfield two in front of the back three.
“Is that where we want to see him? No, that’s definitely not the case. We saw a lot of reminders of how this club plays, what their DNA is, what they should be.”
He added: “I’ve always said that Manchester United’s system is like that, if you have a forward you have a number 10, you can be (Dwight) Yorke, you can be Cantona, you can be (Wayne) Rooney, you can be (Carlos) Tevez, you can be (Dimitar) Berbatov. Players who just drop out the striker, Scholes has been doing that for years.”
“We’ve always had our most talented players close to the strikers and feeding them, so I got a little emotional with that goal.”
“Carrick can lay the foundation for the next head coach.”
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Neville rates Manchester United’s performance against Manchester City
Before the match, Neville called on INEOS to bring in an experienced head coach and said Carrick’s tenure should be limited to the remainder of the season.
Neville said that although he was delighted with the form of the win, Carrick’s aim was to hand over the team to the next manager in the best possible condition.
“This is not the time to get dizzy or crazy,” Neville said.
“Michael Carrick laid the foundations for the next four months today and if he can continue to build on that foundation with that level of performance over the next four months, the player who picks up the baton at the end of the season will be in a good position.
“Ralf Rangnick came in and things didn’t go well in terms of handing over. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came in and was given the job. Michael Carrick has to hand over the baton in a good way. It’s an unbelievable start for him.”
