Carrick Primed For Title Charge

On the face of it, Paul Pogba's introduction after 58 minutes at Wolves last Sunday didn’t seem in any way unusual.

Indeed, with the Reds already 4-0 up and playing against a team reduced to 10 men, it made perfect sense to hand the promising midfielder another taste of top-flight action.

What was notable about those final 32 minutes, however, was the absence of Michael Carrick. Withdrawn to make way for the young Frenchman, the 30-year-old hadn’t endured a bad day at the office or picked up an injury that required treatment. He was simply given a rest.

And well he might following a marathon run of 1,595 consecutive minutes of Barclays Premier League football, a run spanning 19 fixtures and stretching back more than three months.

Or, to put it another way, between coming on in the closing stages of a narrow home win against Sunderland on 5 November 2011 and trotting off the pitch at Wolves last Sunday, Michael Carrick played every minute of every United league game.

“It’s a lot of football, but it’s always nice to be playing,” he told ManUtd.com when we put the statistic to him this week. “When you get a run of games you get into a good rhythm and you feel confident.

“At the moment my body feels great. I’m feeling fresh and I’m keen to do well in the run-in.”

That run-in is considerably less congested this season than in previous years given United’s early exits from both the Champions League and Europa League competitions.

But if there is a silver lining to be found in those grey clouds, it’s the increased time the Reds squad now has between fixtures.

“Ideally we’d still be in the Champions League and we’d be playing twice a week,” Carrick insisted. “But the way things have gone it means we’ve pretty much only got one game a week now.

“That means we can prepare a lot better for each of those and relax properly after each exertion. Normally we don’t get the opportunity to do that – it’s usually a case of play, recover, play, recover and it’s all done very quickly.

“You’d have to say the situation we’re in now should give us an advantage in that area compared to previous seasons. It will help us be at 100 per cent for each game.”

Ever present
Michael Carrick
5 Nov 2011 to 18 Mar 2012

Consecutive league minutes: 1,595

Attempted passes: 1348
Successful passes: 1214
Pass completion: 90%
Chances created: 20
Assists: 2
Goals: 2

Interceptions: 57
Successful tackles: 40


* League games only