Luke Shaw Fitness Check Ahead of Manchester City Derby

Michael Carrick will leave it as late as possible before deciding whether Luke Shaw can face Manchester City, with the defender set for a final fitness check ahead of the derby.

Shaw, 31, sat out Thursday night’s 4-0 Champions League win over Sabah FK, having been taken off in the 2-2 draw with Everton. His absence in midweek was precautionary, Carrick stressed, rather than a major setback.

“We'll have to see,” Carrick told reporters when pressed on Shaw’s chances of featuring on Sunday. “We just kind of looked after him a little bit. He wasn't quite ready for [Sabah] 100%, so we didn't risk it. We'll see how he is over the next couple of days or so.”

United cruised without him in Europe, but City is a different kind of examination. Carrick knows it better than most.

A Derby With History

This fixture drags him straight back to the start of his reign. His first game in the dugout after replacing Ruben Amorim on an interim basis came against Pep Guardiola’s side in January. United arrived then on a four-game winless run, under scrutiny and under pressure. They walked away with a statement win.

On that day, goals from Bryan Mbeumo and Patrick Dorgu cut through City and snapped the slump, launching Carrick’s audition for the job in emphatic style.

He has no interest in dressing Sunday up as some kind of repeat script.

“It'll definitely be different, just because no games are ever the same,” he said. “I think there's no way we're assuming we won last year, we'll do the same things and everything will be the same.

“I think the confidence that we've built over a period of time and feel like we're getting better all the time, I think that helps us. We know it's a big game, we know it's an important game. There's a lot riding on it, it's pretty obvious to say, but we're looking forward to it.

“We've got a short space of time to recover and prepare for it, but we'll make the most of it.”

Short turnaround, high stakes, and City looming. Just the way a derby week is supposed to feel.

From Interim Gamble to Long-Term Plan

Carrick’s tone now carries the authority of a permanent manager, not a caretaker clinging to a chance. He earned that shift.

Twelve wins from his first 17 matches forced the club’s hand, turning an interim experiment into a long-term appointment at the Theatre of Dreams. While noise around the club hinted the INEOS-led hierarchy might chase a marquee outsider in the summer, Carrick insists his own mindset never flickered.

He was never acting like a temporary solution.

“I think I said it pretty early on, I was always planning to be [manager beyond the summer],” he admitted. “All the decisions we were making were if we were going to be here for a period of time. I never knew how long that was going to be, I still don't!

“But you're always planning for the future, what we want it to look like and the direction we want to go, and that was from day one. The performance the lads gave was incredible with all that, but there was definitely always – has been, always will be for me – from the start was planning to try and get this club to where we want to get it in the long term.”

So the derby is not just about bragging rights or a tactical duel with Guardiola. It is another checkpoint in a project Carrick believes is only just taking shape.

Shaw’s availability may swing part of the tactical picture on Sunday. The bigger question hangs over something else entirely: can Carrick’s United prove that January’s win over City was not a one-off spark, but the foundation of something far more enduring?