Manchester United's Michael Carrick Suffers Injury Blow Against Sunderland

Manchester United's exit from the League Cup to Sunderland has been accentuated by Michael Carrick's latest injury blow which is set to further disrupt the Premier League champions' season.

The England international was replaced by Phil Jones four minutes into extra time after twisting his ankle and adds to United's woes after the penalty shoot-out defeat to the Black Cats at Old Trafford.

Carrick's injury, the severity of which is unknown, is further accentuated by Moyes admitting the 32 year old would have taken one of United's penalties in the subsequent shoot-out, which saw Danny Welbeck, Adnan Januzaj, Jones and Rafael all miss from the spot.

Moyes said of the seriousness of the blow: "I don't know [at the moment], I think he twisted his ankle.

"It probably wasn't the group of players we would have [ideally] chosen to take penalties," Moyes added.

"Chicharito would have probably taken a penalty but he was injured. People like Michael Carrick would have been involved if he'd still been on the pitch. We didn't execute our penalties well enough."

"Maybe on another day we'd have had a different set of penalty takers. But that's what we had available to us on the night. It just didn't quite work."

With Marouane Fellaini still out following back surgery and Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney no closer to resuming first team duties, Carrick's latest injury blow comes at a time in the season where Moyes could do with relying on his experienced campaigners.

Carrick missed six weeks of the season with an achilles injury earlier in the term and United will hope for a similarly lengthy spell out isn't repeated, with the Champions League returning next month.

United salvaged a penalty shoot-out after appearing on the brink of elimination in extra time following David de Gea's fumble from Phil Bardsley's shot and though Javier Hernandez levelled on aggregate, the Spaniard's error highlighted the club's troubles.

Captain on the night Darren Fletcher said: "David has been fantastic. .In the last 18 months I don't think there has been a better goalkeeper around. He really has been fantastic. He's been a shining light, one of the big positives of this season.

"He's disappointed, as everyone is, but he will be fine and he will show what a top goalkeeper he is. He redeemed himself in the penalty shoot-out with two saves and we should have done better with our execution of the penalties.

"All goalkeepers make mistakes and it's just unfortunate for David that it's happened to him tonight. But he will be OK."