Michael Carrick challenged his Manchester United players to keep it up after stunning Manchester City in his first game in charge.
United dominated Pep Guardiola’s side during a near faultless 90 minutes, winning 2-0 thanks to goals from Bryan Mbeumo and Patrick Dorgu.
The margin of victory would have been even greater had United not seen three goals ruled out for offside.
City were restricted to just one shot on target and, ahead of his next game against Arsenal at the Emirates, Carrick said his team must learn how to repeat the same level of performance.
“That’s the challenge ultimately and I think it needs to be a version of normal,” Carrick said.
“Certainly we’re not going to have games with the emotion and the feeling of everything that today brought.
Michael Carrick was delighted with his side after the win over Manchester City. Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images
“I think we all understand that, but there’s definitely levels of standards and expectations that we need to live up to from ourselves as much as anyone on the outside. I’m fairly aware of that.
“Consistency is the key to any success, and if you can find that then you’re on to a winner. So that’s our challenge, we’ve got to find a way of doing that.
“It’s a big one next week obviously, another tough one, but on the back of today we’ve got a good foundation to build on.”
Carrick was only appointed on Tuesday and took training for the first time on Wednesday.
The result ended a run of four games without a win under Ruben Amorim and Darren Fletcher and ensured only a second home derby win over City since 2020.
“It’s a great start, there’s no getting away from that,” Carrick added.
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“To be honest, before the game with the coaches we spoke and we said the boys were in a good place.
“We were quite happy with the days and how we prepared for it.
“Emotionally, where the boys were, I was quite happy with that leading into the game, but then City are an unbelievable team with talent and they can rotate and change things.
“You never really know how the game is going to go, but for it to pan out like that, the boys were fantastic in so many ways.
“And to manage it emotionally with the information we’ve given them and pulling it together, yeah, it was pretty good.”
