Sometimes footballers can be a superstitious breed, especially when they transfer to a new club. One of the biggest things that can prove a stumbling block is the shirt number they're assigned.

It shouldn't matter at all, but all too often players get a number in their head that they just can't go without and when they're taking on a number with a particular significance it can become a real issue.

Take Manchester United for example. Antonio Valencia wanted the famous number 7 shirt, which had been work so capably by the likes of George Best, Eric Cantona and David Beckham. Only once he'd had arguably the worst season of his career he changed back to 25.

Even Memphis Depay was unable to live up to the expectations that the shirt carried with it and more recently Anthony Martial was believed to be unhappy when Zlatan Ibrahimovic was handed the number 9 while he was given 11.

It's something that matters to a lot of players, but one man who didn't care was Michael Carrick. United's number 16 was once worn by Roy Keane, but is now taken up by Carrick, who is a vastly different player to the Irishman.

In a recent interview with Paul Merson on Sky Sports' Dream Team, the veteran England international was asked to compile an XI of players he never played with and Carrick included Keane as his defensive midfielder.

Carrick explained that he believed Keane's passing to be vastly underrated in comparison to his other attributes before going on to say that others making their own comparisons between the two if them never bothered him.

The former Tottenham man knew that the two were completely different players, so he never paid much attention to when fans or pundits tried to draw similarities between them.

"Do you know what, it never really bothered me that much," he said via Balls.ie.

"There was a lot of talk about it, people saying about the pressure and having to.. I was never Roy Keane. I'm not that type of player. I'm just not that style, so I was never going to be.

"Say when I finish at United, and they buy somebody else, they're not going to be me, they're going to be whoever they are.

"But, what a player. Just relentless. Do you know what he was so good at but never gets credit for? Playing it into the forward's feet. His passing was different class.

"People say about his forward runs, and he's aggressive, his tackling, and a leader in general, but technically he was top drawer and that gets overlooked at times."

His dream XI comprised of: Peter Schemichel; Phillip Lahm, Jaap Stam, Paulo Maldini; Roy Keane, Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Clarence Seedorf; Thierry Henry, Didier Drogba, Lionel Messi.