Manchester United's Michael Carrick: 'We must kill teams off early'

Manchester United midfielder Michael Carrick has urged his teammates to raise their game and start "killing teams off" early.

The 31-year-old is happy with the clean sheet the Reds Devils kept in their 1-0 home win against West Ham United on Wednesday, but wants his side to be more dominating in matches.

"It has been a while," The Mirror quotes Carrick as saying. "We had a spell, about a year or two ago, when we were starting games really well and killing teams off really early.

"We want to get back to that, because Old Trafford is a difficult place to play when you go a goal down. We want to make it that way, certainly in the games that are to come because going a goal down has made things a lot harder for us than they should have been.

"Keeping a clean sheet gives us something to build on in the future."

United are currently a point clear of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table.