Manchester United have developed an expensive habit of treating managers like faulty light bulbs: when the stadium goes dark, replace the man standing nearest the switch and hope the electricity returns.
Michael Carrick is the latest casualty of a club that has spent thirteen years searching for the next Sir Alex Ferguson while seemingly forgetting to build an organisation capable of supporting one. Today, Nov 12, 2026, Carrick became another managerial departure after Manchester United slipped into the Premier League relegation zone, collecting just eight points from their opening ten league matches.
The club has reportedly identified Mauricio Pochettino as his successor, giving supporters another name to attach their hopes to while the people responsible for the wider mess prepare to explain why this time will be different.
Something is almost impressive about Manchester United’s ability to make every new managerial appointment feel like the start of a revolution, only for the revolution to end with a press statement, a compensation package, and another man carrying his belongings out of Carrington.
Carrick deserves criticism. His team has been defensively vulnerable, tactically inconsistent and alarmingly short of control during matches. However, blaming him for every problem at Old Trafford is like dismissing a restaurant chef because the kitchen has no electricity, the ingredients are missing, and management keeps changing the menu halfway through dinner.
The manager occupies the most visible seat in the building. That does not automatically make him responsible for everything happening inside it.
- Turning Managerial Dismissals Into Club Policy
- The Glazers Have Presided Over a Decade of Footballing Confusion
- INEOS Promised Professionalism. Where Is the Footballing Progress?
- Recruitment Has Become an Expensive Exercise in Guesswork
- Financial Power, Sporting Mismanagement
- Old Trafford Cannot Be Rebuilt Through Nostalgia
- The Managers Cannot Keep Being the Convenient Scapegoat
- Manchester United Need a Football Club, Not Another Rescue Mission
Turning Managerial Dismissals Into Club Policy
Since Ferguson left in 2013, United have employed David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, José Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Ralf Rangnick on an interim basis, Erik ten Hag, Ruben Amorim and Michael Carrick. Eight different managerial appointments, depending on whether interim and permanent spells are counted separately, and an extraordinary amount of money spent attempting to rediscover an identity that should never have been lost.
Each arrived with a different footballing philosophy, personality and reputation. Moyes inherited an ageing championship-winning squad, Van Gaal brought structure and possession, Mourinho brought trophies and a confrontational personality, while Solskjær attempted to reconnect the club with its attacking traditions.
Ten Hag arrived with an impressive reputation from Ajax, Amorim brought his back-three system from Sporting CP, and Carrick earned his opportunity after an outstanding interim spell that restored United to the Champions League.
The pattern is becoming difficult to ignore. The club hires a manager, gives him considerable influence over recruitment, spends heavily on players suited to his preferences, encounters difficulties, questions his authority and eventually sends him packing.
Then another manager arrives to inherit the consequences.
United have effectively turned the managerial position into a revolving door with a luxury waiting room. The people entering are different, the promises are familiar, and the bill keeps going to the same supporters.\
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The Glazers Have Presided Over a Decade of Footballing Confusion
The Glazer family’s ownership remains central to understanding United’s decline, particularly because the club’s problems began long before INEOS entered the picture.
Ferguson and David Gill left in 2013, removing two individuals who had provided extraordinary stability across the football and executive departments. What followed was a prolonged period of institutional confusion, with commercial success often disguising the absence of a coherent sporting strategy.
Manchester United remained commercially powerful, selling sponsorships, shirts and the promise of association with one of football’s biggest institutions. Unfortunately, commercial departments cannot coach a defensive line, and a global marketing campaign cannot explain why a midfield repeatedly loses control of a match.
The Glazers maintained ownership while the club cycled through managers, executives and expensive recruitment mistakes. Their willingness to preserve the commercial machine never translated into equally convincing football leadership.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s arrival as a minority investor in 2024, with control of football operations through INEOS, raised expectations that the club would finally be run with greater sporting discipline.
Yet changing the people in charge does not automatically change the quality of their decisions.
INEOS Promised Professionalism. Where Is the Footballing Progress?
INEOS arrived with the reputation of an organisation that understood elite sporting operations, having built successful structures across several sporting environments.
Omar Berrada became chief executive, Jason Wilcox took responsibility as director of football, and Christopher Vivell was appointed director of recruitment. There was finally a recognisable attempt to establish a modern football department rather than allowing the manager to operate as the club’s chief executive, head scout and recruitment committee.
However, Manchester United’s current predicament raises uncomfortable questions about how effectively that structure has operated.
Carrick’s summer 2026 recruitment provides a particularly revealing example. United committed approximately £163 million to Youri Tielemans, Andrey Santos and Carlos Baleba, concentrating their major investment in midfield while leaving important weaknesses elsewhere.
Baleba arrived injured, the midfield additions have struggled to provide the expected improvement, and defensive problems have continued to expose the team. Benjamin Sesko’s injury difficulties have also left the club short of a reliable centre-forward option for much of the campaign.
This is where the football department must answer difficult questions.
Who decided that midfield deserved practically the entire summer budget? Why was defensive reinforcement not given greater priority? What happened to the succession planning required for an ageing or injury-prone squad?
A football director’s job involves more than sitting in a meeting, approving transfer fees and appearing beside new signings for photographs. It requires identifying problems before they become emergencies.
Manchester United’s recruitment department appears to have discovered that buying three midfielders is considerably easier than constructing a balanced football team.
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Recruitment Has Become an Expensive Exercise in Guesswork
Manchester United have spent enormous sums over the years, yet the squad still looks like a collection of unrelated transfer strategies.
One manager wants a centre-back comfortable playing out from the back, another prefers aggressive defenders who can defend large spaces, while a third might prioritise physicality and aerial strength. Each gets his preferred players, and the next appointment inherits a squad that resembles a footballing group project in which nobody agreed on the assignment.
Look at the consequences. United have repeatedly struggled to establish reliable partnerships, maintain midfield control and create a consistent defensive structure.
These problems cannot always be solved through individual quality. Football is a game of relationships, and the best squads contain players whose attributes complement one another rather than simply impressive names occupying expensive positions.
Manchester City and Liverpool have demonstrated the value of building squads around established footballing principles, allowing recruitment and coaching to work towards compatible objectives across different seasons.
Manchester United have often approached recruitment as though the solution to a poorly assembled team is another transfer window.
There is a difference between buying good footballers and building a good football team. Old Trafford has spent years paying premium prices to learn it.
Financial Power, Sporting Mismanagement
United generated record revenue of £677.6 million in the financial year ending June 2026, according to their annual financial filing. They also recorded an operating profit of £22.6 million, following an operating loss of £18.4 million the previous year.
Those numbers demonstrate the commercial strength of the institution, even during an inconsistent period on the pitch.
However, the same financial statements recorded net finance costs of £69.6 million and total borrowings that remain a considerable burden. The club also continues to carry transfer payment commitments and substantial infrastructure requirements.
The financial situation makes repeated managerial and recruitment mistakes even more frustrating.
United have spent years paying for players who failed to deliver, managers who failed to survive and executives whose strategies eventually required another round of restructuring.
Sky Sports reported that compensation associated with managerial, coaching and executive departures since 2014 had approached £98 million by January 2026.
Imagine spending almost £100 million paying people to leave and still needing another meeting to establish what the actual problem is.
The club’s financial resources are considerable, yet its sporting decision-making has repeatedly resembled an organisation trying to repair a leaking roof by purchasing increasingly expensive furniture.
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Old Trafford Cannot Be Rebuilt Through Nostalgia
There is also a wider institutional problem surrounding Manchester United’s infrastructure.
Old Trafford remains one of football’s most recognisable stadiums, with a capacity of approximately 74,500, although years of criticism concerning maintenance and facilities have raised questions about the club’s long-term investment priorities.
The proposed new 100,000-seat stadium represents an ambitious opportunity to modernise the matchday experience and protect the club’s commercial future.
Carrington has also received investment, including the redevelopment of the first-team training facilities.
These projects are welcome, although supporters would be forgiven for asking whether the club can modernise its footballing operations with the same enthusiasm it brings to stadium announcements.
A new stadium will not teach defenders how to maintain their shape. A modern gym will not improve a midfielder’s decision-making, and another executive appointment will not magically produce a coherent transfer strategy.
Infrastructure matters enormously, yet it must support a functioning football operation rather than serve as an expensive distraction from its shortcomings.
The Managers Cannot Keep Being the Convenient Scapegoat
Carrick’s dismissal raises an important question about accountability at Manchester United. If the manager is responsible for results, who is responsible for the conditions under which those results are produced?
The manager selects the team, prepares the players and determines the tactical approach. He deserves criticism when those responsibilities are poorly executed.
However, the football director must answer for recruitment, the chief executive must answer for organisational performance, and the ownership must answer for the overall direction of the institution.
Accountability cannot be a one-way street leading directly to the manager’s office.
There is also a danger in allowing every new appointment to promise an entirely different footballing future. Pochettino, if appointed, will arrive with his own ideas about pressing, player development and tactical organisation. He will require time, suitable players and a leadership structure that understands its responsibilities.
If United give him a squad assembled around conflicting philosophies, deny him the reinforcements needed to address obvious weaknesses and then dismiss him when results deteriorate, the club will have learned absolutely nothing.
At some point, the people repeatedly hiring the wrong solutions must consider whether they are part of the problem.
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Manchester United Need a Football Club, Not Another Rescue Mission
Manchester United remain one of the biggest institutions in world football, with a global following, enormous commercial resources and a history that should make sustained mediocrity unacceptable.
Yet the club has spent thirteen years behaving as though its next managerial appointment will somehow restore everything that poor leadership, inconsistent recruitment and institutional confusion have gradually damaged.
Ferguson was an extraordinary manager, although even his achievements were supported by a stable football operation and a clear relationship between the people making decisions.
Trying to find another Ferguson is a pointless exercise. United need to find a structure that can function without requiring one extraordinary individual to compensate for everybody else’s shortcomings.
Carrick has lost his job, and his results gave the club legitimate grounds for making that decision. However, his departure should not become another convenient opportunity for the board to present itself as the solution to problems its own decisions helped create.
Manchester United do not need another managerial saviour arriving with a PowerPoint presentation about pressing, possession and attacking football.
They need competent leadership, intelligent recruitment, a balanced squad and a sporting strategy that survives the departure of whoever happens to be standing in the dugout.
Otherwise, Pochettino could eventually discover what his predecessors learned the expensive way: at Manchester United, the manager may be in charge of the team, but he is rarely in control of the mess.
