Michael Carrick says Manchester United's players are staying grounded after victory over Liverpool yesterday.

The Geordie midfielder told MUTV: "We're not getting carried away by any means but we're happy with our position. Three or four weeks ago we were a few points behind Arsenal and aware that we needed to get points on the board fairly quickly.

"We've managed to do that and obviously Arsenal have slipped up a little bit and opened the door for us."

When United opened the door against Liverpool, the identity of the first scorer caught Carrick by surprise.

"It was mad to see Wes (Brown) up there, I was a bit shocked it was him when the goal went in," he laughed. "It means a lot to Wes to score against Liverpool, being a local lad, and his goal got us up and running. We played some good football after that.

"The game can be on a knife-edge until you get that crucial second goal. Once we got that we could relax and enjoy the game a bit more and then Nani's goal capped things off for us."