Michael Carrick praised Kobe Maino’s impressive performance and praised a tenacious Sabah side as Manchester United celebrated their return to the Champions League with a 4-0 win at Old Trafford on Thursday night.
Matheus Cunha opened the scoring in the 27th minute, latching on to Patrik Dorgu’s cross at the back post, before Bruno Fernandes and Benjamin Cisco scored twice in the final minutes of the first half to put the Azerbaijani side level.
Lisandro Martinez added the fourth goal in the second half after a wonderful performance from substitute Joshua Zirkzee.
Sabah, making his Champions League debut, caused United some discomfort in the early stages and Joey-Lance Michaels wasted a real chance to equalize after Cunha’s opener, but the gap in quality became apparent as the evening wore on.
Carrick was fair in his assessment when speaking after the match, admitting that the result had pleased United on the evening.
“It’s good to have a clean sheet! And obviously to win the match,” he said.
“There was a lot. I thought some of our attacking play was fantastic, some of the football we played was really good, dangerous in transition. We defended well for the most part.”
“I have to give them a lot of credit, they are a very difficult team to play against. They play very little contact and make you really work to get the ball back.
The result seems comforting, but it wasn’t always that way. But I think we did a lot of good things tonight which gave us a good result.
Carrick greets Maino
The performance that caught the most attention came from Kobe Maino, who completed 81 passes in 64 minutes on the pitch, the most passes by an English player in a Champions League match for United since Carrick himself made 89 passes against Olympiacos in February 2014.
“He’s a great player, Kobe,” Carrick said. “I think his vision is very clear.” “The way he performs, playing a little deeper, really, linking up attacks, starting attacks.
“He has a huge impact on our games. It’s a real joy – he wants to learn, he wants to listen – and he expresses himself on the pitch. It’s great to see.”
