Jones Impresses Carrick

Michael Carrick was pleased to see Phil Jones return to action in the 1-0 defeat to Galatasaray.

Jones played alongside Carrick at the heart of the defence and the duo defended stoutly throughout, only for Burak Yilmaz to head the winner from a second-half corner.

"He's been off for a while and it's not easy to come back in a game like that - especially with me playing alongside him!" the former Tottenham midfielder told MUTV. "He's not got someone like Rio [Ferdinand], Jonny [Evans] or Vida [Nemanja Vidic] next to him so he did ever so well and helped me out a few times."

Carrick feels the Reds, already qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League, can afford to take the positives despite being unlucky to lose.

"It's disappointing to lose the game because we don't like losing games," he stressed. "But there were a lot of positives, especially in the first half. We played some good football at times, it was just that the final ball didn't fall for us as we could've easily scored.

"The way the younger lads went about it with the crowd and whole occasion, it didn't affect them, and I'm sure they would have gained from that and we can move on and be better for it.

"Of course, in many ways the main work was done to get us through. We're still disappointed coming away not getting anything from the game but, at the end of the day, we're through and we need to kick on with our league form really."