Doing it for the United Strand?! Michael Carrick reveals Man Utd squad's thoughts as long-suffering fan Frank Illet closes in on haircut

Carrick said it was important for United to not get carried away amid their longest winning streak for two years but he admitted he could not help enjoying the team's resurgence since he took charge.

He said: "It's a really easy thing to say, and listen, part of it, you've got to enjoy the buzz of winning, right? You have to. That's what we're in it for. So you've got to manage the highs of it and you've got to enjoy initially the feeling of winning a game. You can't just be flat-lined the whole time but certainly going into the next game you've got to then regroup and prepare again for what's next.

"But you definitely take the confidence and the feeling from the games that you've had knowing you can go into the next game with a little bit more feel-good factor about it, but I guess the big challenge is knowing what's got you there and all the hard work and the preparation and then what it takes to win a game of football at this level is tough, so never assuming the next one's just going to be alright.

"But you've still got to allow yourself to feel the little bits and waves of emotion with it, because you're all a little bit boring and pointless if you didn't really. Winning games is what we're all strive for you know so the boys have been good with that though they've managed it really well and kind of had to hire the win come back into training and focused on the next one and we've got to keep that going."

United have kept two clean sheets in their four games under Carrick and the coach is pleased about how the team have improved defensively.

"It's easier to win games without having to score so many goals every week, for sure," he said. "We do seem to be a team that can cause a lot of problems and create opportunities and score goals, so it's definitely getting the balance right. There's still things to improve on, it's definitely something we've focused on, trying to be better as a team collectively when we don't have the ball, but in three or four weeks we're going to fix, you're not going to fix everything and all of a sudden look perfect. So it's understanding that a little bit, but yeah, I think the boys have responded really well to what we've asked them and the clean sheet, as much as everything today, the clean sheet was important for us."

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