Manchester United boss Michael Carrick would not entertain Elliot Anderson’s claim that Manchester City are the “kings of Manchester” but acknowledged “the bigger picture” ahead of Sunday’s derby.

All eyes will be on Old Trafford as Enzo Maresca leads his new-look side across town eight months on from freshly appointed Carrick beating Pep Guardiola’s men 2-0 in a dream start to life in charge.

United built from there and secured a long-awaited Champions League return with their third-place finish heading into a summer when target Anderson ended up making a £116million move to rivals City.

It was a prohibitive deal for the rebuilding Red Devils, whose star has fallen to such an extent that the 23-year-old said that “for as long as I’ve known Manchester, City have been the kings of Manchester”.

Asked if that was a fair reflection of where the derby is at now, Carrick – part of United’s last Premier League triumph in 2013 – said: “I’m definitely not using that phrase at all, no.

“I understand it and I think going into the Champions League game (against Sabah) and talking about the expectation there, I think it’s a really good thing that it’s shifted in a way.

“All of a sudden there’s different things asked of us now to maybe what was a few months ago and we’re in the Champions League.

“That in itself shows the steps we’ve made, and we need to be in the later stages of that, and then the expectations around that.

“We know that, and we’re humble enough and realistic enough to know where we’ve come from in recent history, and we need to and want to be better, and we want to be challenging more.

“So, that’s where we’re at. It doesn’t mean that we can’t and we won’t. It means we still hope, we believe, and we expect that we can be and we should be, but I understand the bigger picture.”

Anderson is sure to be reminded of his eye-catching remarks at Old Trafford, where United will look to build on a 4-0 win against Sabah in their first Champions League match in 1,003 days.

It was a first clean sheet of a season that Carrick admits has not seen “the start we wanted”, having lost at Hull, beaten Ipswich and then conceded at the death in last weekend’s draw at Everton.

A repeat of January’s victory in his opener would certainly lift the mood and kickstart what he is confident can be an exciting season.

“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,” Carrick said.

“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.”

City have had two extra days to prepare for a match that left-back Luke Shaw is a doubt for having missed the Sabah encounter.

“We just kind of looked after him a little bit going into the Sabah game,” Carrick added. “He wasn’t quite ready for it 100 per cent, so we didn’t risk it. We’ll see how he is over the next couple of days or so.”