Michael Carrick claims new signings at Manchester United must overcome a "massive difference" in expectation levels at Old Trafford in order to succeed at the club.
United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward admitted last month that United will once again be active in the transfer market this summer, less than 12 months after spending £89.3 million to make Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba the most expensive footballer ever.
Pogba has yet to scale the heights expected of him at United, while previous expensive buys such as Angel Di Maria (£59.1m), Memphis Depay (£25m) and Morgan Schneiderlin (£25m) have all been sold after proving to be costly mistakes.
Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann could yet cost United another world record fee if they pursue the Frenchman this summer, but Carrick, who has been handed an end-of-season testimonial (in which all proceeds will go to charity) by United after 11 years at the club, insists that all new arrivals face a unique challenge when pulling on the red shirt.
"I don't know the reason why, whether it is because of what has gone before, but there is a certain pressure that you have to deal with and the expectancy that comes with playing for this club," Carrick told ESPN FC.
"There are questions asked of you and high standards are expected and I noticed a massive difference here from where I had played before when I came to United.
"I was given Roy Keane's No. 16 shirt, but that wasn't really an issue. It was just the pressure of playing here, at Old Trafford, in front of 70-odd thousand every week. But not just that, also the level of attention from the media, fans across the world, is something I had not experienced before, so it is something you have to deal with."
Carrick admits he has sympathy with the young players who have arrived at United with big price tags and then struggled to make an instant impression
"Young lads, when they come in from abroad, the pressures here can sometimes get overlooked," he said. "Even when they come from other teams in England, the jump, mentally, is huge.
"You could say that we haven't achieved much over the past few years, so maybe it is different, but there is a certain attention with United that a lot of other teams don't get.
"It maybe makes it harder now because you're expected to almost solely be the player who acts as the catalyst to get the team back to where it was before. It's not an easy thing to do, but that's the expectation and what people want.
"People are now expecting us to be back up there and rightly so, but as a player, you have to adapt to it and enjoy the challenge. I relished that challenge of testing myself here, whether I could handle it, but it's not an easy thing to do."