Manchester United head coach Michael Carrick does not expect any departures from his squad before the transfer deadline. With 10 days remaining in the summer window for Premier League sides, United are set to make a third midfield signing and hope to strengthen at left-back, but it has been a quiet window in terms of senior outgoings.
Quiet window for outgoings
Manuel Ugarte was expected to leave United before he suffered a serious knee injury during the World Cup. Barcelona did not trigger their £26million option to sign Marcus Rashford, and United had to settle for another season-long loan for Andre Onana, who they wanted to sell.
Joshua Zirkzee has attracted interest from Italy. The Dutchman wanted to leave United in January in pursuit of regular starts, but he was denied a move and did not make the Netherlands squad for the World Cup. There could be movement with Zirkzee in the final days of the transfer window.
Carrick's stance on transfers
However, Carrick said that no players had expressed their desire to leave the club. "Not to me, no," Carrick said when asked whether any players had informed him they wanted to leave. When asked if he would expect the squad to remain unchanged until the winter window, Carrick responded: "Yeah, at least. I don't know what's going to come out, you know. I don't know what's going to come at us from elsewhere."
"We can control what we can control. I'm really happy with the squad we've got so far, and if not, we want to improve it." United have made three signings so far this summer - Karl Darlow, Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans - but Carrick has appeared relaxed about transfers during pre-season.
Learning from the past
The United boss said the club need to "keep pushing" in the transfer market during a chat with journalists earlier this month, but he did not break ranks like some United managers before him. Jose Mourinho admitted he was "not happy" with transfers during United's pre-season tour of the United States in 2018. Mourinho's relationship with Ed Woodward grew increasingly strained across that summer, and Carrick saw the situation unfold as he had been appointed to Mourinho's staff.
When it was put to Carrick that he might have learned from that eventful tour, he said: "I've been really happy with the structure [of pre-season]. It would have been nice to have more players back early, but at the same time, it was nice to see some of the boys go far in the World Cup as well."
"But yeah, certainly as a structure and as a flow and how the boys have come back, how they've trained, what the group looks like. I think we can be happy with a lot of that." "We all know pre-season is one thing, and once the start of the season gets going, it's a whole different story. So I think it just gives you the chance for the foundation to be able to move, and we've got to take big steps as the season goes on to move forward."
