“You’ve watched football a long time, right?” Every word of Michael Carrick’s Ipswich Town embargoed pre-match press conference

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Michael Carrick faced the media ahead of Manchester United’s first home match of the season against Ipswich Town tomorrow. You can read every word of the first part of the press conference here.

Here is every word of the embargoed section, released at 10.30pm on Saturday.

Will Carrick appoint a set-piece coach?

The first reporter asked, “It was said at the start of the summer, it’s fair to say you guys were looking at maybe adding another coach and potentially a set-piece coach into the setup…” Carrick interrupted, “No, I never said that.”

The reporter continued, “I think it was suggested though, that it was a possibility, it was something you were looking at. I’m just wondering if anything’s developed there, if it’s something you’re still looking at to add to the coaching group?”

The answer was clear: “No, no, we’re good with the coaching group.”

On bouncing back

“There were a couple of setbacks in the second half last season against Leeds and Newcastle,” the next reporter said. “On both occasions you won the next game. I think particularly after Leeds, you went to Stamford Bridge and won quite well. Is there anything that you find particularly important in these weeks where you’ve had a setback to kind of, I don’t know, maybe reset the group and go again?”

Carrick answered: “I think your only kind of success comes from how well you deal with setbacks in the end, in any position or certainly any sport, particularly this one, going through a season. There’s going to be setbacks, sometimes a bit smaller than others. It’s how you kind of deal with that initially, how you react to that, what comes next.”

“I think that ultimately decides what type of team you’re going to become. And so far we’ve dealt with those setbacks really well within games, game to game. And yeah, we had one last week, no getting away from it, and it’s disappointing, but we look to bounce back. We’ve had a good week, boys have refocused, learnt from where we could have improved and keep pushing forward.”

Leadership questioned

“With regard to this, more the performance actually than the result at Hull, you’ve got your captain Bruno Fernandes, you’ve got Youri Tielemans who’s the captain of Belgium, who knows what he’s doing. Did you get enough from those two players in terms of leadership when you most needed it on the pitch?”

“It’s one game, so I think there’s enough leadership in our dressing room that we’ll have it throughout the season,” Carrick responded. “Just because we lose a game, um, doesn’t just because leadership or I’ve got passion thrown at me after the game, it’s not just that. Do you lose two set plays like we did? Changes the game.”

“That was actually going to be my follow-up question,” reporter Jamie Jackson said. “You did get, let’s say, rankled by Fjortoft’s questioning of passion. But if there was passion there, how come there wasn’t a performance? Because it didn’t look to my very amateur eye that there was.”

The head coach became a little defensive:

“You’ve watched football a long time, right?” “Sorry?”

“You’ve watched football for a long time. Teams lose games and win games, and it’s not just because you try or you don’t try.”

“So what was the reason then?” Jackson persisted. “Why did you lose that game?”

“Well, there’s all sorts of different reasons teams lose games,” the boss retorted. “So there’s different reasons.”

Jackson continued, “Give me one concrete one.”

“I don’t have to give you the total reason because we know what we’re trying to improve on,” the Wallsend man answered. “But what I’m just saying to you, I think it’s so easy and lazy to just say team loses a game, everything’s wrong. This is wrong, this is wrong, not trying enough, not enough passion. It’s just like the obvious answer. So I think there’s a lot that goes into a game of football that …

“…It’s the manner of it though, Michael, not the actual defeat,” Jackson pressed. “Games can be lost, but the sort of way in which your team …”

The head coach replied: “It’s still just a game though, and we’ve, we’ve probably played like that and won games, and everyone goes, what a great team, what a great coach, what a great load of players, when we find a way to win 1-0. So from my perspective, when you’re analysing it, it’s not the feeling and just that because of the feeling. We’ve got to dig deeper than that and understand the details of it. And, and we do— don’t get carried away when we win certain games because we know it’s not been perfect, and sometimes when you lose games, we know what we need to improve on, but there’s certainly things that we can be a little bit clearer on and calmer on in certain moments to understand that and keep the belief that things that we’ll do well, which we will do, will win us games.”

On Carrick’s new-look midfield

The next question was, “Now that you’ve got the three new midfield players in, you’ve got a different look, a different kind of mix in that area of the pitch. What’s your take on what you’ve got now, and had you been told in May what you’re going to have now, would you have been happy with what you now have in your squad?”

He answered, “I think we’ve got a really good balance. We’ve certainly got youth in there, and when I say youth, that’s come with a lot of experience and not youth where it’s really young, but 22, 22, 21 is a really good age with the level that we’ve got at the moment, with experience, with Youri and Mase to balance it off. And offering different things, and obviously it’s picking the right balance, the right combinations at certain times.”

“It’s a long season and getting through these first weeks where it’s one game to then getting into the busier schedules, I think it’s a really strong midfield and a really strong unit, so I’m really happy with that.”

The Carlos Baleba signing

The following question was, “It was established about a year ago that the club were keen on Carlos and I saw him have an interaction with you at Brighton in May and some of the other players. What was the reason that it took as long as it has done for him to come in?”

The gaffer replied: “There’s all sorts of reasons. I think you can still see now, there’s this within football, the window, it takes things to get into place for certain situations. It’s not always straightforward and things have got to drop. So in the end, we’ve been patient. We wanted to get the right players in. We’ve said that all along. That fit the group, that will take us forward, and Carlos is definitely one of them. So we’re delighted to have him for the season, and once he gets going in the next two to three weeks, he’ll be really strong.”

The ticket touting clampdown fiasco

The reporter continued: “And I appreciate this isn’t something you’re directly involved in, but where it’s the first home game of the season, there’ll be a lot of supporters who won’t be at the game this weekend because of the club’s ticket-touting clampdown. I mean, do you have sympathy with those supporters and how they feel as though they’ve been mistreated by the club?”

“I had sympathy for our supporters last week with the travel scenario, and understanding that and the time and the effort and the money that they spend to come and support us all over the country and all over Europe, and if not all over the world. So I understand that side of things,” Carrick said. “There’s certain things that we can make better. There’s certain things that are out of our control, but I certainly appreciate the supporters. I think that’s pretty obvious from my perspective.”

Mason Mount’s injury struggles

“The player’s been here a few years now and every time he seems to be getting a bit of momentum he gets these niggles. Is the club trying to do anything to solve that and do you still think he can make a big impact here?”

“Yeah, 100%, Mase can have a big impact, yeah, no doubt. I think he’s a top player, and he’s started pre-season and gone through pre-season particularly well, so he hasn’t missed an awful lot of time, so he’ll get up to speed pretty quickly.”

The reporter continued, “The constant injuries, is that something you’ve looked at or is it just bad luck?”

“I think with every player we want to keep them on the pitch as much as we can, and certain players end up going through spells a little bit different to others. But yeah, we’ve got unbelievable staff and facilities here and things we can draw upon to try and make it better for every player and keep them as fit as long as we can, for sure.”

Another question then came in about Mount’s injuries: “You’ve been around Mason in that kind of situation like that. How much does he get down? Because like Chris said, he kind of, he seems to get to that limit where he’s gonna make a big impact, then has that setback. What do you have to do to kind of pick him up in that kind of situation?”

The head coach answered: “He’s very level, Mason. I think he’s a really top character, you know, and personality, and does a lot of the right things and with the right intentions. So he’s the type where you can really have a good relationship and an understanding with. And yeah, he was disappointed to pick up this small knock that he did, but it won’t knock him for what’s coming next in the season ahead. We’re really positive about that.”

Bouncing back revisited

A reporter then asked: “You say how important it is for a team to respond to setbacks. There haven’t been that many since you took over in November. Has there been anything different in training this week? Have you kind of seen the response that you wanted?”

Carrick replied: “Yeah, I’ve seen them. In terms of response, I’ve seen what I wanted this week for sure. Yeah, the boys have— it hurts when you get beat, it hurts and it hurts us all. And so it’s, as I said, it’s how you deal with that. But the boys have come back and you could tell those who were coming back after a defeat, you can sense it, you get a feeling for it. But I like the way the boys have refocused and come together, stuck together, done the right things, trained really well, of a really good level with everything we’d expect, and refocused for the weekend. You know, it’s the only way, but the boys have been good this week.”

The final question was, “Obviously you played here for many years. Is it possible at a club like this to shut out the noise, or is it just something that you kind of learn to live with?”

“I remember missing the penalty against Burnley in 2009. I think it was the second game of the season, we got beat 1-0. I’m sure they just got promoted at that time as well, and I think we had just won the league and got to the Champions League final at that stage. So it’s part of it, it happens, you know. We don’t want it to happen. You can lose games of football, and it’s, as I said, it’s how you bounce back, you know, and bounce back with good performances and winning games and kind of using that a little bit to feed off it and drive you forward a little bit more, you know, and makes you stronger.”