Manchester United can still save this season. There is enough quality in the squad, enough football left to play and enough time for a serious manager to impose something resembling order. But there is one condition: Michael Carrick cannot be allowed to remain in charge while the club waits for another crisis to become irreversible.
The 2-0 defeat at Atletico Madrid should end the experiment. United have now gone five matches without a victory. They conceded after 53 seconds in Spain, missed chances, lost Leny Yoro to a red card and walked away with another defeat that will inevitably be dressed up as containing “positive signs”.
Manchester United have lived on positive signs for more than a decade. They need victories.
Carrick can point to an improved performance. Wayne Rooney saw progress. Carlos Baleba and Andrey Santos gave United greater energy in midfield. Bryan Mbeumo had opportunities. Bruno Fernandes hit the bar. The Yoro red card was debatable. All of that is true.
None of it changes the score.
Atletico Madrid won 2-0. They had 62 per cent possession. They completed 501 passes to United’s 270. They scored inside the first minute and, once United were reduced to ten men, finished the contest without ever looking as though they had been dragged into a genuine crisis.
United, meanwhile, remain trapped in the most dangerous phase of modern Manchester United management: the period when mediocrity starts being rebranded as progress because the alternative is admitting another appointment was wrong.
Carrick is not the fundamental problem with Manchester United. He did not create the years of terrible recruitment, confused strategy or managerial turnover that preceded him. He is a respected former player, understands the club and deserves credit for accepting a difficult job.
But sentiment cannot become selection criteria for one of the biggest managerial positions in world football.
Manchester United need an elite coach. Not a familiar face. Not somebody who “gets the club”. Not another former player being given time to learn one of football’s hardest jobs while Arsenal, City, Liverpool and the rest move further away.
They have made this mistake before.
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Manchester United are repeating the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer mistake
There is an uncomfortable familiarity about Carrick’s situation.
Manchester United appointed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer initially as an interim manager in December 2018. He restored happiness, liberated players and delivered an extraordinary run of results.
Then United allowed emotion to drive strategy.
Solskjaer received the permanent job and remained in charge for almost three years despite never winning a major trophy. There were excellent results, impressive league finishes and unforgettable nights.
But the fundamental question was always there: would Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or Manchester City have handed that stage of their development to a manager learning elite club management in real time?
Probably not.
United did.
Now they appear dangerously close to falling into the same psychological trap with Carrick.
The argument is always seductive.
He knows Manchester United.
The players like him.
The performances are improving.
Give him some time.
See what happens.
Manchester United have spent years “seeing what happens”. What happens is that another season disappears.
Five games without a win is not development
The excuses after Atletico will come easily.
United created five significant chances.
The midfield looked improved.
The red card changed the contest.
Carrick made five changes and got a response.
Fine.
But Carrick is managing Manchester United, not Bournemouth.
At this club, improved performances eventually have to produce improved results.
Five matches without a victory is not an encouraging trend. It is a warning.
Carrick has already had opportunities to establish momentum and has failed to do it. Every week United remain uncertain about their managerial future is another week players train inside a tactical system that may disappear when the permanent manager arrives.
That is wasted development.
A proper appointment made now would have months to assess the squad, establish principles and identify what needs to change in January and next summer.
Waiting simply compresses that work into another emergency.
United’s squad is better than these results
This is what makes the situation so frustrating.
There is talent here.
Bryan Mbeumo should score goals.
Matheus Cunha possesses aggression and quality.
Carlos Baleba showed in Madrid why United invested in him.
Andrey Santos offered energy and intelligence.
Bruno Fernandes remains capable of deciding matches despite another disappointing performance in Spain.
Lisandro Martinez can still defend at elite level when fit and sharp.
Yoro remains one of Europe’s most talented young centre-backs.
This is not a squad destined to look grateful for a respectable defeat at Atletico Madrid.
It needs organisation.
It needs certainty.
And above everything, it needs a manager whose authority comes from his coaching record rather than his history as a Manchester United player.
United have spent enough money to demand solutions. They cannot keep appointing managers who require Manchester United itself to become their education.
Carrick is being asked to do a job he has not proved he can do
This is not an attack on Carrick’s intelligence or character.
He may eventually become an excellent Premier League manager.
His work at Middlesbrough showed genuine promise. He understands football, communicates well and clearly has coaching ability.
But managing Manchester United is not supposed to be a development programme.
United require somebody who has already managed enormous pressure, controlled elite dressing rooms, adjusted tactically against Europe’s best coaches and won significant trophies.
Carrick cannot point to that body of work.
And Atletico exposed why experience matters.
United recovered well from conceding early but still lacked the ruthless edge required to punish Atletico when opportunities arrived.
Then came the red card.
The match changed.
Atletico managed the new reality and scored again.
United lost.
Good teams often look decent in defeats.
Great managers find ways to stop decent performances becoming defeats so regularly.
The red card cannot become another hiding place
Leny Yoro’s dismissal was soft.
It unquestionably made United’s task harder.
But United were already losing.
This matters.
The narrative cannot become that Manchester United were cruising towards victory until the referee intervened.
They were chasing the match.
Mbeumo had missed opportunities. Fernandes had failed to convert. Atletico had also struck the woodwork and had another goal ruled out.
United played better than in several recent matches.
They still lost.
At some stage, the manager must be judged by outcomes rather than the quality of the excuses surrounding them.
Stop waiting for the perfect moment
Manchester United’s executives may argue that replacing Carrick immediately would be disruptive.
What exactly is stable about five games without a win?
The greater disruption comes from allowing uncertainty to become normal.
Players know when a manager is temporary.
Agents know.
Potential signings know.
Opponents know.
Everybody waits.
Carrick is described as interim because Manchester United themselves have not decided he represents the long-term solution.
So make the decision.
If he is genuinely the best available manager for this club, appoint him permanently and defend the choice.
If he isn’t, continuing with him because replacing him is inconvenient is managerial cowardice.
An interim manager should be a bridge to a solution, not somewhere Manchester United build another house.
There is still enough season left to repair this
This is why the timing matters.
United are not in April.
They have not been eliminated from every competition.
The squad has not completely disintegrated.
A new manager arriving now would inherit problems, but also opportunity.
There is time to recover domestically.
There is time to stabilise Europe.
There is time to create a coherent first-choice XI.
There is time to decide whether Rashford, Fernandes and others still belong in the next version of Manchester United.
There is time to stop another year becoming a write-off.
But that window closes quickly.
Three more weeks of poor results become two months.
Two months become a January rescue mission.
January becomes another season of explaining why the real rebuild starts next summer.
United supporters have heard this story enough.
Manchester United’s obsession with familiarity has to end
The club spent years looking backwards.
Former players.
Old standards.
The United way.
People who understand Old Trafford.
All of those things have emotional value.
None guarantees elite management.
Sir Alex Ferguson did not build Manchester United by appointing people because they understood Manchester United.
He built Manchester United by being better than everybody else.
That should be the standard.
Find the best manager available.
Pay the compensation if necessary.
Give him authority.
Then judge him brutally by Manchester United standards.
Anything else is romanticism disguised as strategy.
Another lost season would be unforgivable
Michael Carrick may turn this around if given more time.
That is possible.
But Manchester United should no longer be operating on possibilities.
They need evidence.
Five games without a win is evidence.
Another European defeat is evidence.
A team that still oscillates between encouraging passages and fatal mistakes is evidence.
Carrick does not deserve abuse for that. He deserves acknowledgement that the assignment may simply be too large at this stage of his managerial career.
United, however, deserve criticism if they refuse to recognise it.
They already spent years convincing themselves Solskjaer would eventually grow into the manager required to return the club to the very top.
Now they are drifting towards the same experiment again.
There is a famous line often attributed to Einstein about insanity being doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Whoever actually said it is less important than the lesson Manchester United should take from it.
Stop repeating yourself.
Stop giving the most important football job in England to people who are still proving they belong at that level.
Stop confusing familiarity with qualification.
Michael Carrick may one day become good enough for Manchester United. Manchester United cannot afford to waste another season waiting to find out.
The season is still salvageable.
The next decision determines whether it remains that way.
Sack the interim manager. Hire a proven one. And for once, stop waiting until failure becomes impossible to ignore.
This article is an opinion and analysis piece. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views or official position of BettingTips4You.com or BSpin Limited.
