Why Carrick is backing Kobbie Mainoo to get his Man United career back on track

Michael Carrick has stressed Kobbie Mainoo's importance to Manchester United after the young midfielder revived his Old Trafford career.

United are understood to have re-opened talks with Mainoo's representatives nearly a year after the issue was put on hold under Ruben Amorim.

The 20-year-old's development stalled under Amorim who only gave him one start this season – in the Carabao Cup humiliation at Grimsby – before he was sacked earlier this month.

Caretaker Darren Fletcher restored Mainoo to the line-up for the FA Cup defeat by Brighton, and Carrick gave the player is first Premier League start since May in last weekend's uplifting victory in the Manchester derby.

Mainoo looked back to his best and Carrick believes it is vital that United maintain their proud record of promoting academy players to the first team.

'I've really enjoyed working with him,' said Carrick. 'I've known him since he was young. I think I started working with him a little bit when he was 13 or 14-years-old when I was kind of going through my badges myself.

'This club needs young players coming through and being the foundation for understanding what it means. Not just for the players or the squad, but for the club and for the supporters.

'I think it's something that we need to grasp and we need to keep building on. Kobbie's a prime example. To come through so quickly and have the rapid rise, and to play in some unbelievably big games and impact those big games at such a young age, shows an awful lot of quality in terms of the character and to be able to handle it.

'I think part of a career is a few ups and downs and sometimes it goes in different trajectories. But I think we've seen last week what Kobbie can bring. It was great.

'He's quite straight-faced and he doesn't give you an awful lot, but you could see the way he played and he expressed himself. He was enjoying himself and to see him like that was great.'

Mainoo will be hoping to keep his place when United face Arsenal at the Emirates on Sunday. Carrick has been trying to focus his players on that game by making sure they don't get carried away by the 2-0 win over Manchester City.

'One game doesn't make you a great team,' he warned. 'It gives us a great foundation to build on. There's a lot of confidence in the group but we know what's coming.

'Everyone came through the game really well. I can't tell you anything apart from the obvious; it's been a good week, a big result and performance, a big uplift with the feeling inside the stadium. It's getting that balance with the encouragement and confidence from the game keeping feet on the ground.'

United will still be without Matthijs De Ligt as the Dutchman works his way back from a back injury.

'He had a bit of setback before I arrived,' added Carrick. 'I think he was just a little bit slower than we'd hoped. But he's certainly getting closer and hopefully in the next couple of weeks or so, without putting an exact time, he'll be back and around it and it'll be great to have him back.'

Carrick played Bryan Mbeumo at centre-forward against City and the Cameroon international was excellent before making way for Matheus Cunha in the second half. United’s £73.7m summer singing Benjamin Sesko was left on the bench, even though Joshua Zirkzee was unavailable.

United’s new head coach was reluctant to say if he will adopt a similar plan against Arsenal, and suggested that he will use the options at his disposal.

‘There's variety in terms of the strengths,’ said Carrick. ‘I gave Bryan gave a bit of a free role in a partnership with Bruno (Fernandes) last week to drift and to fill different spaces.

‘I think Ben's very good at playing on the last line and runs in behind. I think we've seen that over recent weeks, and he's done great to get his goals so he's in a good place.

‘Josh can do a little bit of both and drifts and plays in the hole. He's very good at bringing other people into play. It’s just different styles and I think certain games will suit different styles. It's great to have that flexibility for sure.

‘Matheus came on through the middle and made a big difference for us in terms of carrying the game into the latter stages and creating a second goal. We've got good options through there and we just felt last week that was the way to go and obviously thankfully it paid off for us.’