{"id":484711,"date":"2026-02-23T00:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T00:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/484711\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T00:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T00:16:07","slug":"carrick-man-united-cant-get-carried-away-with-champions-league-within-reach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/484711\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrick: Man United can&#8217;t get &#8216;carried away&#8217; with Champions League within reach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feb 22, 2026, 05:46 PM ET<\/p>\n<p><a data-clubhouse-guid=\"6ebc2fd0-35d3-733b-5666-b75035a3bce9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=360\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a> boss Michael Carrick has said his side aren&#8217;t letting themselves get &#8220;carried away&#8221; after recent form has put them firmly in contention for Champions League qualification, while praising the role of veteran midfielder <a data-player-guid=\"ab047467-87f8-5eff-056a-13d18de5138e\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/173666\/casemiro\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Casemiro<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>United have only dropped points once under Carrick so far, in their last outing at West Ham on Feb. 10 when <a data-player-guid=\"3fb9e111-d7d7-72be-d04f-4cabdb2d50d7\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/289155\/benjamin-sesko\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Benjamin Sesko<\/a>&#8216;s late goal rescued a point.<\/p>\n<p>Victory over <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"c531d4dd-ea53-c1fc-9c91-c7f8f31b5a40\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=368\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Everton<\/a> on Monday night would see United leapfrog <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"c43a00b9-2826-72b3-77a0-62730abc936e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=363\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chelsea<\/a> and go into fourth place in the <a data-league-guid=\"6949f3af-300c-35f1-beab-b95669eedd38\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/ENG.1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Premier League<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Asked if qualification for the Champions League was now a possibility, Carrick said: &#8220;It&#8217;s good that everyone&#8217;s asking that question. It shows that we&#8217;ve put ourselves in a good position to start with.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Michael Carrick has said his side aren&#8217;t getting carried away amid a positive run of form.\u00a0Shaun Brooks &#8211; CameraSport via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not getting too carried away now all of a sudden after a few weeks. We know where we&#8217;re at, we&#8217;re in a good position. I&#8217;d still like to be in a better position, mind you, but we&#8217;re in a good position.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re positive, I think we should be. I think there&#8217;s a lot of good things to take and look forward to. But then again, it&#8217;s up to us and putting it into play really. It&#8217;s possible, it&#8217;s up to us to take the opportunity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been a fruitful spell for United under Carrick, who were in sixth when the 44-year-old took over.<\/p>\n<p>One of the key performers in that run has been Brazilian midfielder Casemiro.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/story\/_\/id\/47993193\/transfer-rumors-news-casemiro-join-lionel-messi-cristiano-ronaldo-leaves-man-united\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Transfer rumors, news: Casemiro to join Messi or Ronaldo when he leaves United?<br \/>&#8211;<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/story\/_\/id\/48006586\/arsenal-tottenham-premier-league-title-reaction-analysis-eze-gyokeres-goals-highlights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Arsenal answer title pressure with resounding win at Spurs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The former <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"66434654-a8ba-a04c-98e5-6bbd0dbbb780\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=86\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Real Madrid<\/a> star will leave United at the end of the season, but Carrick has been hugely impressed with the part the 33-year-old has played.<\/p>\n<p>He said: &#8220;Cas has been fantastic since I came in really, on and off the pitch. Experience is a great thing if you use it in the right way.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Being a senior player here there is almost the responsibility of [setting] the example, and helping the younger players, helping the rest of the boys, and passing on your experiences in a positive way.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s been top since I came, in so many ways, and he&#8217;s been a pleasure to work with. I look forward to continuing working with him for a few months yet.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Information from PA contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb 22, 2026, 05:46 PM ET Manchester United boss Michael Carrick has said his side aren&#8217;t letting themselves&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-484711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}