Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog
Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog
Manchester United return to the Champions League tonight after a year out of the competition with a home tie against Azerbaijani Sabah.
Speaking to the press ahead of the game, manager Michael Carrick reflected on how much the players were looking forward to it and how Champions League football should be the bare minimum expectation at a club like United.
We worked hard to be here. It’s great to be here, massively looking forward to the game and the campaign and trying to make it as long as we possibly can make it. So big challenges ahead and some really fantastic games, starting tomorrow. So yeah, massively looking forward to it.
It means an awful lot, you know. It’s challenging yourself against the elite and the very best and I’ve said it before I think it’s over a long, long, long period of time this football club’s been used to challenging with the best and being the best and it’s not something that you can take for granted of what it takes to be there and what it takes to stay there, you know? And we’ve missed out on it for a number of years and now we’re back, so I think it means a lot. It’s where we want to be every single year and it’s where we should expect to be without being ahead of ourselves. It’s what we have to push for, it’s the standards that we want to set and it’s up to us to be able to do that. I think we’ve made huge steps over the last few months or a year or so to make it in and finish the league really strong to be in this position and now it’s about what’s next and pushing into the next chapter, if you like, the next phase, the next evolution of the team and the squad. This is certainly where we want to be and it’s up to us now to make sure we stay here.