Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images
Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images
Michael Carrick hasn’t had a good start to the season for Manchester United, but a possible alternative has already seen his campaign ended in a sacking.
Manchester United are four games into the Premier League season, and pre-season hopes of a title charge now feel very far-fetched, but the prospect of giving up and changing manager already feels even more unlikely.
But for one manager, the new season has already come to an end. Interestingly, it is a manager who has previously outlined his real desire to manage United one day.
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Dino Toppmoller sacked by Lens after Manchester United admission
United have four points from four games, which is the exact record that RC Lens had in Ligue 1 under manager Dino Toppmoller, who replaced current Crystal Palace boss Pierre Sage over the summer. Toppmoller came into Lens from Frankfurt after relative success in 121 games for the Bundesliga side.
Toppmoller also came through Bayern Munich as their assistant manager alongside Julian Nagelsmann from 2021 to 2023. However, his venture to Lens has gone down as a complete failure, with L’Equipe reporting on Tuesday that Toppmoller has now been sacked.
This is a bit of a surprising decision from Lens, with Toppmoller winning the French Super Cup against PSG before winning the first game of the league campaign against Auxerre. But he has followed this up with two narrow defeats to Strasbourg (2-1) and Lorient (0-1) before a 2-2 draw away to Le Mans FC, with a Champions League win over Slavia Prague sandwiched between.
WIN vs PSG in the Super Cup
WIN vs Auxerre in Ligue 1
LOSS vs Strasbourg in Ligue 1
LOSS vs Lorient in Ligue 1
WIN vs Slavia Prague in the Champions League
DRAW vs Le Mans in Ligue 1
The sacking comes almost a year to the day from Toppmoller admitting his dream to coach United in the future, which came at a time when he was quite an exciting coach in the Bundesliga, but now he feels miles away from achieving this dream.
Of course, Toppmoller has the coaching ability and experience in Germany to bounce back very quickly and get himself a new job where he can be successful, and who knows, maybe even place himself in conversations for a future position at Old Trafford if he does well.
The last manager to get sacked after a few weeks with ties of some kind to United was Erik ten Hag last season at Bayer Leverkusen. Having taken charge of the Bundesliga side, Ten Hag lasted three league games in what was a big shock.
This came after Leverkusen lost Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid, before selling all of their best players and expecting Ten Hag to work miracles. Ten Hag hasn’t been in a management job since then, which is a big shame considering the fact that pre-United, he was considered one of the most exciting in Europe at Ajax.
There is still a bright future for both of these coaches, but for Toppmoller, that dream of coaching United looks to have sailed him by.