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United Failed Ole. Now Carrick Is Being Left With the Same Problem 1
I’m sick of it.
I’m sick of watching Manchester United change direction, leave the manager to deal with the consequences, and then make him the first person to pay when it all goes wrong.
We saw it with Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Now, as Michael Carrick fights for his job, it is happening again.
The football has been poor. The results have been worse. Carrick has to take responsibility for that, just as every United manager has to. But the conversation cannot begin and end with the man in the dugout.
United have spent years building squads that do not make sense together. When the inevitable problems appear, the manager is left to answer for them while the people responsible for recruitment prepare to appoint his replacement.
Ole’s Plan Changed With Ronaldo
Under Ole, United were building an attack around youth, pace and energy. There was a front 3 of Martial, Rashford and Greenwood, who were young, talented, and had legs. It wasn’t a perfect team, but there was an idea: play quickly, press and use the movement of the forwards to cause problems. The midfield had legs in Fred and McTominay and let Bruno Fernandes do what he does best: attack. It was a fluid attack with a good, solid, whilst imperfect base of McFred.
Then Cristiano Ronaldo became available.
Ronaldo was still a brilliant goalscorer, but bringing him back changed the demands on the team. Ole has since spoken about having to adjust United’s pressing and the roles of the players around him. Ronaldo couldn’t press; he needed the others to run for him.
He has also said he agreed to the signing. I respect that he has taken responsibility, but I’m tired of that being treated as the end of the discussion. This decision was more on the board than on Ole. Ole could not turn down Ronaldo when Ferguson, the Glazers, and Woodward all wanted him back, as a fairy-tale signing and a marketer’s dream.
The club made that decision together. The people above Ole approved a move that changed the direction of the team, and they did not solve the problems it created. When the results collapsed, Ole lost his job.
I don’t believe the public knows enough about what went on behind the scenes, but the matter of fact is that Ole Gunnar Solskjær was not setting his side up to play with a player like Ronaldo, and then was lumbered with him, leading to a whole new style of play to be implemented to fit him in and sacrifice others to him.
Ole had already spent time developing an understanding with Edinson Cavani about how he wanted United to play. Cavani had signed a new contract that summer. Then Ronaldo became available, and the attack had to be reworked. Ole later admitted Cavani was the player who suffered most from the change.
United had also missed opportunities to pursue strikers Ole admired, including Erling Haaland and Harry Kane. Instead, when Ronaldo returned, the club was left trying to fit a brilliant goalscorer into a team that had been developing around different demands.
Carrick’s Squad Is Pulling in Different Directions
Carrick’s situation is not identical, but the pattern feels familiar.
United went into the summer needing more mobility and physicality in midfield. The interest in players such as Elliot Anderson, Aurélien Tchouaméni, Mateus Fernandes and Éderson suggested the club understood why: this team needed players capable of covering ground and protecting the defence.
United eventually signed Andrey Santos, Youri Tielemans and Carlos Baleba. There is ability in all three, but that does not answer the bigger question: what sort of team were they signed to create?
Tielemans and Kobbie Mainoo are players who can help United keep the ball. But having technical midfielders does not automatically give you control. The forwards need to press together, the midfield needs to stay connected, and the defence needs to be able to support them.
When the first line of pressure is beaten, and the defence cannot push up, those midfielders are left trying to cover enormous spaces. They spend less time controlling the match and more time putting out fires.
Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo give United serious attacking quality, but the team still needs a coordinated approach without the ball.
Behind them, Harry Maguire and Lisandro Martínez have their own strengths, yet repeatedly asking them to defend large spaces is hardly playing to those strengths. Given their largest weaknesses are fitness and pace, asking them to push higher up and sprint back is waiting for an inevitable injury to happen.
The result is a squad that seems to demand several different styles at once. Carrick is left trying to make them work together.
Simply put, United cannot control games with a defence that struggles to push up, a midfield that cannot cover the space around it, and forwards better suited to attacking space than pressing from the front. When the press is beaten, the midfield is stretched and the defence is left exposed.
What Was the Plan for £50 Million?
Andrey Santos is a talented young player. This is not an attack on him.
But United committed a reported £50 million to someone who had not established himself in Chelsea’s starting midfield. At a club with so many immediate problems, it is fair to ask why that was the best use of the money.
If Santos was signed primarily for his potential, who was supposed to improve the midfield immediately? And if he was expected to be that player, did United properly judge how ready he was?
Baleba looks closer to the physical profile United needed, but he arrived late in the window with an ankle injury. Carrick had to start the season without him and then integrate him into a side already struggling.
There were problems elsewhere too.
Luke Shaw was already on the wrong side of 30 and had a history of injuries, so United should have known they could not rely on him being available throughout the season. The club was linked with Lewis Hall and alternatives including Alejandro Balde and Jorge Salinas, yet the window closed without a new senior left-back. Given Shaw’s recurring fitness issues, that was a significant risk.
Harry Amass is an option, but pairing him with Lisandro Martínez raises questions about the physical and aerial balance on that side of the defence. That does not mean they cannot play together, but opponents will look to exploit any perceived weakness, and United need a plan to deal with it. The fact that the club hasn’t given Amass a new deal, is willing to sell him for £6M, and let him go on loan in January shows how highly he is rated.
The same lack of planning applies up front. Benjamin Šeško has had his own injury problems, yet United went into the season without a clear alternative they appear to trust. Joshua Zirkzee is in the squad, but the club’s reported willingness to move him on hardly suggests they see him as the answer when Šeško is unavailable. Once again, an obvious risk was left for Carrick to manage.
None of this means Carrick should be free from criticism. It means the people responsible for these decisions should face it too.
United Need a Plan, Not Another Scapegoat
Rúben Amorim had his own failings at United. The football and results gave the club reasons to be concerned. But his public disagreement with the hierarchy over recruitment and authority also exposed a club that could not agree on how to move forward. He was sacked shortly afterwards.
Now Carrick is under pressure after the 3-0 defeat to Bournemouth. He has been given the Chelsea game to begin turning things around, but it is obvious how quickly the conversation can move towards his replacement.
My fear is that United will once again change the manager without properly confronting the decisions that left him in this position.
At United, the manager takes the blame for the squad. The people who built it get to choose the next manager. Carrick proved last season he was a good manager; Ruben Amorim is proving at AC Milan he is a good manager; the issue is not the manager.
The Glazers ran this club into the ground. INEOS arrived promising something better, yet supporters are still watching expensive squads with no clear identity. At the same time, ordinary staff have lost their jobs in the name of efficiency.
If Carrick’s time ends, United can appoint whoever they like. Until the people above the manager are held accountable for the team they build, I have little faith that the outcome will be any different.
And what about the men making the decisions? Omar Berrada held senior commercial roles at Manchester City during part of the period in which an independent commission found that the club had used disguised owner funding to inflate revenues; City have appealed.
Berrada has not been accused of personal wrongdoing in the case, but United supporters are entitled to scrutinise the record of the man now running their club.
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United Failed Ole. Now Carrick Is Being Left With the Same Problem 3
Alongside Berrada is Jason Wilcox, whose reputation was largely built at Manchester City’s academy. He spent just nine months as Southampton’s director of football before United came calling.
That was a huge jump: from a Championship club chasing promotion to one of the biggest clubs in the world, with a squad in desperate need of rebuilding. So what was it about that short spell that convinced United he was ready for a job of this size? Wilcox was supposed to bring a game model; I don’t see it.
Both men arrived at Old Trafford with reputations built largely at United’s local rivals. After the money spent and the unbalanced squad Carrick has been left to manage, their decisions deserve every bit as much scrutiny as the manager’s results.
Are these directors the best in class? You’re having a laugh.
The Glazers ran us into the ground. But INEOS are burying us 6 feet under.
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