Every word from Michael Carrick’s-pre West Ham press conference

What do you make of West Ham under Nuno [Espirito Santo]?

 “Yeah, well, there’s a bit of change, I think injuries, as well, is difficult. I think they’re very good on transition, very dangerous. They’ve got some really good attacking players. So, you know, we’ve looked at them already and kind of have an idea with that, as they will have done for us, you know? But yeah, they’re a threat, they’re a threat, and when they get a head of steam at home, they’re a dangerous team, so definitely got to be ready to cope with all that.”

Michael, you’ve said in virtually every press conference that you won’t get carried away, you won’t allow people to get carried away. When you took over at Middlesbrough, you won a lot of matches. There were a couple of defeats, but you won a lot of matches. Is there anything from that period that you can learn about this period, and keeping focused and maintaining your sights on the next game, and not getting carried away? Because it’s an easy thing to say…

“No, 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 got to enjoy it, initially, the feeling of winning a game, you know? You can’t kind of just be flatlined at all times. 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. It’s tough, so never assume that the next one’s just going to be alright. But you’ve still got to allow yourself to feel the little bits of waves of emotion with it, because yeah, it’s all a bit little bit boring and pointless if you didn’t, really, to be honest. Winning games is what we’re all striving for, you know? The boys have been good with that, though, they’ve managed it really well, and kind of had the high of the win, come back into training, and focused on the next one, and we’ve got to keep that going.”