Reds are up for derby day

MICHAEL Carrick is confident Manchester United are peaking at the right time for the derby match on Sunday.

Neither team has had a brilliant start to the saeason, but Carrick is confident United can come away from the Etihad with some reward.

‘I don’t think we've played that badly so far this season,” the midfielder said.

“We won at the weekend, and on Tuesday we took it to another level and improved again. Hopefully we can do it again on Sunday. The performance will breed confidence.”

Wayne Rooney was the star of the show in the 4–2 win over Leverkusen as he netted twice to bring up his milestone of 200 goals for United.

Rooney’s strike partner Robin van Persie was also on target on Tuesday night, as was Antonio Valencia, and while neither of those two are likely to match the Liverpudlian’s career goalscoring feats at Old Trafford, Carrick is delighted to see them all firing.

‘To have lads like that in your team is brilliant,” Carrick said. “I thought Antonio was immense on Tuesday night as well and to have Wayne and Robin scoring and assisting is fantastic.

“Even if they’re maybe not having the best of games they can always come up with something.”



CITY defender Pablo Zabaleta expects this weekend’s Manchester derby to be as ferocious as ever.

Zabaleta believes none of the tensions between the teams will have been lost with Sir Alex Ferguson’s Ferguson’s departure.

The right–back said: “It won’t be any different. Even without Fergie they are still Man United.

“Ferguson was a great manager and an important person for the club, and for their fans it was great to have him on the bench.

“But now it is a different part of history, and we have to respect David Moyes because he is the new manager there. It was always tough for us to beat Everton when he was there.

“It’s a special game, one you want to play in, and to win. It is still United. They will come to the Etihad to try to win the game.”