Unlike many of his players, Michael Carrick has personal experience of the special nights as a Manchester United player at Old Trafford in the Champions League. This was scarcely one of them, but if Carrick had compiled a list of things he wanted from the evening, this must have ticked nearly every box. A perfect night? “Yeah, I think so,” he said.
The fixture list made it a low-key comeback to the Champions League but Carrick was able to rest four players ahead of the Manchester derby, take off five more and chalk up a comfortable win. “Some of the football we played was really good,” said Carrick. “We just did a lot of good things.” Some players benefited. Matheus Cunha, who was fortunate to avoid a late red card for a studs-up challenge on Erivaldo Almeida, surely needed his first goal of the season. Benjamin Sesko marked his first start of the campaign with a second goal in a week.
