Jamie Carragher believes Manchester United haven’t got the quality to be a serious Champions League contender this season.
Back in the competition for the first time since 2023, United got their league phase underway with a routine 4-0 win over Azerbaijani side Sabah.
Matheus Cunha opened the scoring before a quickfire double from Bruno Fernandes and Benjamin Sesko put Michael Carrick’s side in full control at the break.
Lisandro Martinez made the most of a goalkeeping mistake to get on the scoresheet in the second half as the Red Devils got back to winning ways ahead of Sunday’s highly-anticipated Manchester derby.
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United failed to get out of the group stages during their last appearance in the Champions League, but will look to avoid that fate in the revamped league phase this time around.
And while off to an encouraging start at Old Trafford, former Champions League winner Carragher is not convinced that the Red Devils will be serious contenders come the business end of the tournament.
‘Probably not just yet,’ Carragher told CBS Sports when asked if United could contend in this year’s Champions League.
‘Manchester United have been out of the competition for a couple of years, but it’s not even like a couple of years ago they were in it consistently anyway. I think they’ve probably been in it once in five or six years, something like that.
‘So even though they are one of the biggest names in world football, I think once you get back in it for the first time for a while, I think the first target will be to make sure they get through the league phase, and then when you get to the knockout stage, can you get a nice run? Can you almost get to maybe a quarterfinal? Something like that.
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‘Now, I’m not trying to be patronising in any way. Manchester United, as I’ve just said, are one of the biggest clubs in the world.
‘But to go into it now with the squad that they’ve got and expect them to sort of do big things and take on other clubs with their type of name, they just haven’t got the quality right now, I think, to go deep into the competition.’
Thierry Henry, meanwhile, believes a clash with Atletico Madrid next month will give a clearer indication of United’s potential in this year’s competition.
‘That was the perfect game to have at home to start the Champions League and be back in it,’ Henry added.
‘At the weekend, that’s when you can see what that team is, and then after, we can have a confirmation maybe after against Atletico Madrid [in matchday three]. But we will see.
‘It’s too early. It’s very difficult to know. Some players left at halftime. Not everybody started because you play City at the weekend. But look, they played against Sabah, they won.’
Assessing his side’s performance on the night, Carrick told TNT Sports: ‘It’s nice to keep a clean sheet and obviously win the game. Some of the football we played was really good, dangerous on transition. I have to give them a lot of credit, they were difficult to play against.
‘The result looks comfortable, it wasn’t always like that. We just did a lot of good things tonight, which gave us a good result.’
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