Carrick to make his debut at Old Trafford today
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Carrick poised for United debut
Michael Carrick will make his full debut for premier league leaders Manchester United against former club Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford on Saturday, manager Alex Ferguson confirmed on Friday.
Carrick joined United from Tottenham in July for a fee that could rise to 18.5 million pounds ($34.66 million) but is yet to start a match after sustaining an ankle injury in pre-season.
The 25-year-old midfielder is now fully recovered and after one substitute's appearance for United will get the chance of an early meeting with his former employers.
"I think he will be glad to get it over with. I think anybody playing for the first time against their old team will want to get it out of the way," Ferguson told reporters.
"He owes a lot to Tottenham. They took the chance on him at West Ham when maybe others didn't."
Carrick has a key role to play for Ferguson's side, particularly following United's failure to land top target Owen Hargreaves from Bayern Munich before the transfer window closed.
Tottenham manager Martin Jol said: "I've had to cope with the idea of not having Michael (Carrick) for the last six or seven weeks so it hasn't been easy because we wanted to keep him.
"But he wanted to move up north and in particular to Manchester United. So when they paid us I had to let him go.
"I saw the problem of us not being able to pick a pass against Everton (when Tottenham lost 2-0 at home) and we just have to work on it.
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He added: "The amount of money we received for him doesn't make me proud because I would've loved him to stay.
"Michael will continue to get better. I don't agree with people who say he isn't the complete holding midfielder because nearly every one of our attacks started with him." -
it is time for him to pay man u for their confidence in him.
it will be nice to see him score against spurs. -
So evil... but i like the idea...
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he played ok.
man u won 1 - 0 and leads the table with 12 points.
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Yeah he did well, his passing was quite impressive. Had the vision to pick out players...
He just need some more games with the players to better undertand their style of play... then he would be a another playmaker from the back where Roo & Ron is from the front... -
his long pass was really accurate!