Why Sir Alex Ferguson didn't play Michael Carrick for Manchester United until it was raining

Carrick will call time on his illustrious playing career after Sunday's Old Trafford clash with Watford

Ferguson signed Carrick from Tottenham in 2006 (Manchester United)

Retiring Manchester United star Michael Carrick has revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson would shut him out of the side until the weather took a turn for the worse.

Carrick is set for a sunny send-off when he calls time on his illustrious playing career after Sunday's Old Trafford clash with Watford.

But the 36-year-old admitted he might not even have made the starting line-up if Ferguson, who is making steady recovery from a brain haemorrhage he suffered last weekend, had still been in charge of the team.

Carrick told ESPNFC: "At the start of the season, for about three years in a row, he used to tell me, 'you don't play well until it starts raining.'

"At the time I was thinking, 'What is he talking about?' But then you'd get in the team around September or October.

"I'd miss the first four to six weeks and then once I got in the team, I always pretty much stayed in the team."

Ferguson signed Carrick from Tottenham in 2006 and the midfielder went on to pay tribute to the "massive, massive influence" the Scot had on his career.

Carrick added: "What a man. He was a massive, massive influence on me personally, not so much what he sat down and said to me but more the aura that he had, the feelings that he gave out and the culture that had produced at United when I came into that dressing room.

"His relentless will to win, again and again, was unbelievable."