Michael Carrick's Decision on Luke Shaw for Manchester City Clash

Michael Carrick will wait until the last possible moment before deciding whether Luke Shaw is ready to face Manchester City, as Manchester United brace for a derby that feels bigger than most.

Shaw, 31, sat out Thursday’s commanding 4-0 Champions League win over Sabah FK after being forced off in the 2-2 draw with Everton. United cruised without him in Europe, but City is a different question entirely.

Carrick made it clear the omission was about protection, not punishment. He and his staff chose caution over risk.

“We'll have to see,” he told reporters when pressed on Shaw’s chances for Sunday. United’s head coach explained they had “looked after him a little bit” and that the left-back was “not quite ready” to be at full tilt against Sabah, so they held him back. The next 48 hours will decide whether he is thrown into one of the fiercest fixtures of United’s season.

A derby that circles back to the beginning

For Carrick, this City game is not just another date on the calendar. It drags him right back to where his managerial story at Old Trafford truly began.

His first outing in the dugout after replacing Ruben Amorim on an interim basis came against Pep Guardiola’s side back in January. United arrived then on the back of a four-game winless run, frayed and uncertain. They left with a statement.

That night, Bryan Mbeumo and Patrick Dorgu struck with clinical precision to topple City and jolt United back into life. It felt like a reset, a reminder of what the club still expects of itself.

Carrick, though, has no time for the idea that history will simply repeat itself.

“It’ll definitely be different, just because no games are ever the same,” he said. There is no sense from him that last season’s win provides a shortcut. No assumption that the same plan, the same patterns, will work again.

What he does believe in is the arc of his team. The confidence that has grown over months, the feeling that United “are getting better all the time,” as he put it. He knows the size of the occasion, calls it a big and important game with “a lot riding on it,” but there is no trace of dread. Just a short turnaround, a tight preparation window, and a promise that United will “make the most of it.”

From stopgap to standard-bearer

Carrick’s journey since that first City clash has altered his status inside the club. He was supposed to be a bridge, a caretaker, a neat solution until the hierarchy settled on a marquee name.

Instead, 12 wins from his first 17 matches changed the conversation. Results forced a rethink. The interim tag disappeared, replaced by a permanent mandate at the Theatre of Dreams.

Outside Old Trafford, the noise persisted. INEOS, newly embedded in the club’s power structure, were widely tipped to chase a glamorous external appointment in the summer. Carrick heard the speculation but never worked as if he were just keeping the seat warm.

He insists his mindset never wavered. From the moment he stepped in, he planned as though he would be in charge beyond the summer, building for something that stretched far beyond a rescue mission. Every decision, every tweak, every selection was made with a longer horizon in mind.

He admits he never knew how long his tenure would last, and still doesn’t. That uncertainty, though, never stopped him from sketching out what he wants United to become and the direction he believes they must take.

The players responded. Performances, like the one that dismantled Sabah FK, have backed his conviction that this is a project, not a patch-up job.

Now comes City again. A different moment, a different United, the same unforgiving stage. Carrick’s long-term vision meets the most immediate of tests.