Luke Shaw's Fitness Decision for Manchester Derby

Michael Carrick will leave it as late as possible before deciding whether Luke Shaw can face Manchester City, with the Manchester United boss refusing to gamble on the fitness of his first-choice left-back.

Shaw, 31, sat out Thursday’s 4-0 Champions League win over Sabah FK, having been forced off in the 2-2 draw with Everton. The scoreline in Europe suggested cruise control; Shaw’s absence underlined the caution behind the scenes.

“We'll have to see,” Carrick told reporters when pressed on Shaw’s chances for Sunday’s derby. “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 coped without him in midweek. City is a different question entirely.

Carrick’s full-circle derby

For Carrick, this is not just another date on the calendar. The clash with Pep Guardiola’s side is a rerun of his very first game in the dugout after stepping in for Ruben Amorim on an interim basis in January.

That night, United snapped a four-game winless run and cut through City with a sharp, disciplined display. Bryan Mbeumo and Patrick Dorgu delivered the goals, and Carrick delivered a statement.

He is not dressing it up as some kind of template, though.

“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.”

The message is clear: last season’s win is a reference point, not a guarantee.

From stopgap to standard-bearer

Carrick’s calm tone masks the scale of his own journey. He arrived as a supposed short-term fix, a steady hand while the INEOS-led hierarchy weighed up marquee names and long-term visions.

Results forced the conversation in his direction. Twelve wins from his first 17 matches at the Theatre of Dreams turned an interim stop into a permanent appointment. The numbers gave him leverage; the performances gave him authority.

He insists he never treated it like a temporary gig.

“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.”

That long-term vision now runs straight through another meeting with City. Shaw’s late fitness test is just one subplot. The larger question hangs over the whole occasion: is this United side ready to prove that January’s derby breakthrough was the start of something permanent, not just a one-night shock to the system?