Who Is Answering for the Rebuilds?
Big Spending, Familiar Problems
Since Alex Ferguson retired, United have repeatedly hired a new answer to a different question. The consequences reach from the boardroom to the transfer market.
On 4 July 2024, Manchester United confirmed that Erik ten Hag’s contract had been extended until June 2026. On 28 October, they announced his departure. Between those decisions came a summer transfer window in which the club committed further resources to a team he was expected to lead.
That sequence helps explain why United keep changing managers. Poor results create the immediate pressure, but the club’s choices about appointments, recruitment and the meaning of progress determine how often that pressure becomes another reset. Managers make consequential mistakes. The people appointing them also decide what kind of job they are being asked to do.
By 2026, Michael Carrick is the latest head coach facing that scrutiny. Ruben Amorim’s departure in January had already extended the succession that began when Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. The question reaches beyond whether any individual dismissal can be defended: why have so many different attempts to rebuild United failed to produce lasting stability?
Ferguson Left More Than a Vacant Manager’s Office
Ferguson’s departure removed an unusually powerful organising figure. He selected teams, shaped recruitment, managed personalities and renewed squads across generations. His authority also gave United a recognised centre of sporting judgement.
That did not mean he worked alone. Coaches, scouts, executives and players all contributed. But his long tenure allowed relationships and expectations to accumulate around one manager, with everyone understanding the weight his decisions carried.
Replacing such a figure requires more than identifying an accomplished coach. A club must decide which responsibilities belong to the successor and which should be distributed among specialists. It must preserve useful knowledge without assuming that inherited practices will work equally well under someone with less authority.
United’s first succession also coincided with a major executive transition, as David Gill left his chief executive role and Ed Woodward became the leading executive figure. The club therefore changed two central sources of leadership at once.
The 2013 title encouraged the belief that the next manager was inheriting a machine that mainly needed careful steering. A more demanding interpretation was that Ferguson’s ability to extract results had concealed how much renewal would soon be required. Those explanations are not mutually exclusive: a championship squad can still face an approaching transition.
The danger was treating an exceptional manager’s success as evidence that the institution around him would reproduce it automatically.
The Appointments Answered Different Questions
David Moyes arrived from Everton with a reputation for stability and making a team competitive over time. His appointment suggested continuity, patience and a belief that a manager could grow into the position.
Louis van Gaal brought a different proposition: an experienced international coach with a strong tactical identity. His football placed greater emphasis on controlled possession and positional discipline. José Mourinho then offered another change, built around his record of winning major trophies and managing demanding dressing rooms.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s appeal included his understanding of United’s history and the possibility of restoring a more positive atmosphere. Erik ten Hag arrived after his achievements at Ajax, carrying the promise of a coached playing structure and improved standards. Amorim brought a recognisable approach associated with his success at Sporting.
These were not identical candidates receiving identical instructions. Each appointment reflected a different diagnosis of what United lacked: continuity, technical authority, proven winning, cultural connection or tactical reconstruction.
There is nothing inherently wrong with changing direction when evidence demands it. The problem arises when the appointment itself becomes the strategy. If the club has not defined what should survive a managerial departure, each new coach can inherit both a playing squad and an unresolved argument about the purpose of that squad.
A manager can then appear to need an extensive rebuild before the club has properly assessed why the previous rebuild failed.
The Managers Still Had Real Responsibilities
An explanation focused on the boardroom must survive an obvious objection: some United teams played badly because their managers made bad decisions.
Coaches choose systems, select players, organise training and respond to opponents. They influence whether a team remains compact, whether attacking moves have repeatable patterns and whether players understand what to do when possession is lost. Those are substantial responsibilities.
Moyes’s team fell sharply from the level of the reigning champions. Van Gaal’s possession football often struggled to create enough attacking urgency. Mourinho’s later period became increasingly strained. Solskjaer did not establish the sustained progress required to turn promising finishes into a title-winning side.
Ten Hag won two domestic cups, yet league performance deteriorated. Amorim’s record also provided legitimate grounds for scrutiny. A difficult environment does not make every tactical decision sound, or mean that persistence would inevitably have produced success.
Nor does success elsewhere prove that a manager must succeed at United. Different leagues, squad profiles and working relationships test different strengths. A club can appoint someone with a strong CV who remains unsuitable for its particular circumstances.
The boardroom argument is therefore about shared responsibility. When an appointment fails, assess the coach’s work and the quality of the decision that put him there. Repeatedly examining only the first allows the selection process to escape the same scrutiny.
Why Winning a Cup Has Not Settled the Argument
United’s post-Ferguson story includes meaningful achievements. Van Gaal won the FA Cup. Mourinho delivered the League Cup and Europa League. Ten Hag won the League Cup and then the FA Cup, beating Manchester City in the 2024 final.
Those trophies matter to supporters and belong in any fair account. They also make the club’s managerial decisions harder to reduce to a simple record of uninterrupted failure.
A knockout competition rewards preparation, execution and resilience across a limited number of matches. A league season tests the ability to sustain those qualities across changing opponents, injuries and periods of poor form. Neither is meaningless, but they measure different aspects of a team.
The difficulty for directors is deciding what a cup win reveals about the wider project. Does it demonstrate that a developing side is close to consistency? Or does it show that a team with serious underlying weaknesses can still produce excellent performances on selected days?
Van Gaal departed shortly after winning the 2016 FA Cup. Ten Hag survived the summer following his 2024 triumph, only to leave months later. Those outcomes do not establish that either decision was necessarily wrong. They show why a board needs standards that can explain how trophies, league performance and future prospects fit together.
Without those standards, one result can appear to transform the verdict on several months of evidence.
Ten Hag’s Extension Made the Next Reversal More Expensive
The 2024 sequence deserves particular attention because the leadership had an opportunity to make its assessment before the season began.
United retained Ten Hag, extended his contract and proceeded into the transfer market. That choice committed the club to a direction. It also told players and staff that the manager had sufficient backing to lead the next stage.
When he departed in October, the club was left to change leadership after the main summer recruitment period had closed. The successor would have to work with a squad assembled under the preceding plan, with limited immediate scope to reshape it.
There were defensible arguments for retaining him. He had won trophies, and injuries complicated the assessment of his team. A board should be allowed to account for circumstances rather than dismissing a manager whenever the league table disappoints.
But allowing for circumstances requires a clear view of what improvement should follow. If a club reverses its decision soon afterwards, it should examine whether new evidence genuinely changed the assessment or whether the original review gave too much weight to the wrong things.
The appointment of Amorim introduced a further question about tactical suitability. His preferred use of three central defenders and wing-backs had implications for a squad assembled for other arrangements. The recruitment of a distinctive coach is also a commitment to the practical requirements of his football.
How a Squad Becomes a Collection of Different Plans
A transfer can be sensible for one manager and awkward for his replacement without the player suddenly becoming poor.
Consider the demands placed on a wide defender. One coach may want a conservative full-back who protects the space behind an attacking winger. Another may want that player to move into midfield. A third may require a wing-back who provides the team’s main attacking width and repeatedly reaches the penalty area.
The label on the team sheet can conceal very different jobs. The same applies to midfielders asked to defend large spaces, forwards expected to lead a coordinated press and centre-backs required to defend far from their own goal.
When a club changes those demands frequently, recruitment leaves behind layers. Some players suit the old structure. Others suit the new one. A few can adapt, while others remain useful only in combinations the incoming coach does not prefer.
Supporters then hear that the latest manager needs his own players. Sometimes he does. But that requirement also raises a question for the club: why was so much of the previous investment dependent on one person remaining in charge?
A strong football department reduces that exposure. It recruits players who fit a durable set of principles and chooses managers capable of working within them. Coaches retain room to innovate, but their departure does not make the squad’s basic design obsolete.
Heavy Spending Can Coexist With Poor Recruitment
The claim that United’s owners have never provided transfer money is too broad. The club has repeatedly spent substantial sums on players. The more useful criticism concerns the return on that investment and the decisions governing it.
Recruitment involves several separate judgements. Can the player perform the required role? Does his age suit the squad’s development? Is his injury history manageable? Does the fee make sense compared with alternatives? What happens if the manager changes?
A famous name can answer none of those questions by itself. Nor does a high fee establish that a player was the best option available. Price reflects negotiating conditions, contract length, competition for the player and the selling club’s willingness to walk away.
Wages add another constraint. A player can retain considerable ability but become difficult to move if his salary exceeds what interested clubs will pay. Keeping him, subsidising a loan or accepting a reduced fee may each carry a cost.
This helps explain why an expensive squad can remain unbalanced. Money committed to an unsuitable role cannot automatically be redirected towards a missing one. The club may need a midfielder while carrying too much cost elsewhere.
The Ten Hag and Ronaldo dispute illustrates a related difficulty: an individual’s standing and achievements do not settle how he should fit into a manager’s team. Recruitment must anticipate that sporting relationship before a disagreement becomes public.
What the Glazers Are Responsible For
The Glazer family’s ownership has shaped United’s financial and institutional environment since the 2005 takeover. Supporters’ objections extend beyond any particular transfer window to debt, the use of club resources and the quality of long-term stewardship.
A manager cannot determine the ownership structure. He cannot decide how much authority a football executive receives or whether infrastructure spending is prioritised consistently. Those choices establish conditions within which successive teams must work.
There is also a difference between generating revenue and using it to build a leading sporting operation. United’s global appeal gives the club considerable commercial strength. Historical success, international support and enduring recognition can sustain business opportunities even through disappointing seasons.
That resilience is valuable. It can also weaken the immediate connection between sporting decline and institutional change. A club may continue to look commercially formidable while falling behind competitors in recruitment, facilities or the coordination of specialist departments.
It would be unfair to infer that every commercial decision was made at the expense of football. A successful business helps fund a successful team. The governance question is whether sporting expertise has enough authority to turn resources into a coherent programme.
Owners deserve credit for improvements they enable and scrutiny for weaknesses they permit to persist. Delegating decisions does not remove responsibility for choosing the people who make them.
INEOS Inherited Problems and Made Decisions of Its Own
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s investment brought an important distinction between ownership and operational control. The Glazers retained majority ownership, while INEOS took responsibility for football operations under the arrangements announced with the transaction.
That division matters when allocating responsibility. The inherited financial structure cannot be attributed entirely to the new football leadership. Equally, decisions made after that leadership gained control cannot all be explained away as someone else’s legacy.
The arrival of Omar Berrada, Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox signalled an effort to create a more specialised football structure. In principle, that addressed a central weakness: a club of United’s scale needs expertise distributed across clearly defined roles.
Ashworth’s departure in December 2024, only five months after he began work, raised questions about how effectively that structure had been designed. The official explanation was that he left by mutual agreement. That wording does not establish the private reasons or justify inventing a personal conflict.
The short tenure nevertheless warrants institutional scrutiny. A senior appointment represents an assessment of skills, authority and working relationships. When it ends quickly, the organisation should learn whether the assessment, the remit or the integration process proved inadequate.
Combined with the Ten Hag reversal, it showed that adding experienced people to an organisation does not automatically create a settled decision-making system. The relationships between those people must work as well as their individual qualifications suggest they should.
Amorim and Carrick Show Why the Job Must Be Defined
United announced Amorim’s departure on 5 January 2026, with the team sixth in the Premier League. Darren Fletcher was placed in charge for the immediate fixture, and Carrick subsequently took the head coach role. The club later confirmed Carrick would continue, with a contract running to 2028.
The terminology matters less than the authority attached to it. A head coach may be expected to concentrate on training and matches while senior football executives control recruitment and wider planning. A traditional manager may expect influence across a larger range of decisions.
Either model can function. Difficulty arises when the parties understand the division differently, or when responsibility for results exceeds influence over the resources required to improve them.
The board must therefore define what its coach can decide, what he can recommend and what he must accept. It should also explain internally how disagreements will be resolved. A transfer committee that cannot reach timely decisions can be as damaging as a manager with unchecked influence.
Carrick’s position should be assessed through his own work and the commitments made when he was appointed. His familiarity with United does not prove suitability, just as an outside coach’s reputation would not guarantee it. The relevant question is what evidence supports his ability to deliver the club’s actual plan.
Why the Manager Receives the Most Visible Blame
A coach stands beside the pitch while the consequences of decisions unfold. Cameras record his reaction to every missed chance and defensive error. He then explains the match publicly, often within minutes of the final whistle.
Recruitment decisions have a different rhythm. Their consequences can take months to become clear, and responsibility may be divided among several people. Ownership choices operate over still longer periods. They are harder to compress into the immediate argument after a defeat.
This imbalance helps make dismissal attractive. It is a clear action with a clear announcement. It can change training, selection and morale quickly, and sometimes produces genuine improvement.
But a short-term response is not a complete diagnosis. A new manager may benefit from returning players, a more favourable fixture sequence or a reduction in tactical complexity. Those improvements can be real without proving that every underlying weakness has been resolved.
The opposite error is assuming that all calls for dismissal are shallow. Supporters can recognise a failing tactical approach while also criticising ownership. Accountability does not require choosing a single person who must explain everything.
Patience Needs Evidence and a Decision Process
Ferguson’s difficult early years are often invoked as an argument for giving managers more time. The comparison offers a useful warning against impatience, but it cannot establish that a particular modern appointment deserves to continue.
Time helps when coaching is improving players, recruitment is addressing identified weaknesses and performances show repeatable progress. It is less useful when the club cannot explain what should improve or why its chosen approach is likely to work.
Directors need several measures. League position matters, alongside the quality of chances created and conceded, physical availability, player development and the team’s ability to execute a recognisable plan against different opponents.
Those measures also require judgement. An injury crisis can distort results. A favourable run of opponents can flatter them. A talented young player may improve while the team remains inconsistent. No single statistic settles every appointment.
The point of a clear review process is to make decisions explainable before pressure peaks. It should establish what would count as progress, which setbacks are tolerable and which evidence would justify changing course.
Without that preparation, patience can become passive waiting. Decisiveness can become an expensive reaction to the latest result.
What a Better Run United Would Do Differently
United need a football plan durable enough to survive the departure of its author. That begins with deciding how the club wants to build attacks, defend space, develop young players and balance experience across the squad.
Those principles need not specify every formation. They should be concrete enough, however, to rule out unsuitable appointments and transfers. A coach who requires a wholesale tactical conversion should face a different assessment from one who can improve what already exists.
Recruitment should then consider both immediate contribution and future flexibility. The club needs to know which players form the long-term core, where physical decline may create a problem and which contracts could restrict future choices.
A squad overhaul may sometimes be necessary, but replacing large numbers without a settled direction multiplies uncertainty. New players need time to learn each other’s movements. Every additional transfer also introduces another judgement that can be wrong.
Executive performance should receive structured review too. That means assessing appointment quality, transfer value, succession readiness and whether agreed responsibilities actually operate in practice. The people evaluating the coach must be accountable for the tools and instructions they give him.
The test of the next managerial decision will begin before the first team sheet. United’s leadership should be able to explain which parts of the existing project remain sound, what the coach is being hired to change and why the squad can support that change. If those answers require another complete reinvention, the club should examine the decisions that made reinvention necessary.
Sources
Manchester United — Permanent Post-War Managers — The succession from Ferguson through Carrick, distinguishing permanent appointments from temporary spells.
Manchester United — Ten Hag’s Contract Extension — The July 2024 commitment that preceded his October departure.
Manchester United — Carrick’s Coaching Staff Confirmed — Confirmation of the continuing coaching arrangements and Carrick’s contract to 2028.
