Michael Carrick has been warned that two Manchester United stars are set to be brutally “exposed” in his first game back in caretaker charge of the Red Devils against Manchester City.

Carrick is set to lead United on an interim basis for the rest of the season and faces a daunting task with City coming to Old Trafford in the early kick-of on Saturday.

The former Middlesbrough boss is expected to start with a back four as Darren Fletcher did in his two games in (even more) interim charge, and former Red Devils defender Paul Parker expects Diogo Dalot and Luke Shaw – who look set to start as the full-backs – to struggle against City’s wingers.

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“Well, you don’t have to be an ex-full-back or an ex-defender. you can be the man on the street, and you know that the full-backs that United have got are going to struggle,” he told Metrovia?online casinos UK.

“Dalot and Shaw are going to struggle pace-wise. And because there’s no, at this moment, out-and-out defender there, you know they’re going to get exposed in one-against-ones.

“So that’s going to be a big, big problem for Michael Carrick, and generally what it would mean is that you would use one of your wider players to help by trying to help you by not allowing the ball to get to the feet of those players too far up the park.

“When it gets close to the goal and then you’re a little bit more congested as a team, compact, then yes, you can understand it and that makes it easier because there’s more players around. But the last thing you want to be doing is getting caught too far up the park one-against-ones.

“That’s going to be the problem because there’s going to be a lot of acres for people to run in behind. So it’s going to be a massive problem. I don’t know how Michael Carrick is going to deal with that.”

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Morocco’s progression to the AFCON final means United will again be without Noussair Mazraoui, and Parker believes that the 28-year-old would have been “perfect” had he been available for selection.

“Mazraoui would always be the first shout because Mazraoui at right-back would be absolutely perfect,” he said. “Mazraoui at left-back would be even more perfect up against Doku.

“l get groin strains just watching him play, to be perfectly honest. The stop and starts, wow. That’s one I wouldn’t want to play against.

“You give me Semenyo rather than Doku, to be perfectly honest. Because as defenders, you don’t want to stop and start.”