MAYBE MANCHESTER UNITED ARE SACKING THE WRONG PEOPLE

The honeymoon is over for Michael Carrick and Reality has arrived at Manchester United.

Four games into the Premier League season, United have four points. Manchester City have maximum points from their opening four.

And after losing the Manchester derby, the uncomfortable questions are no longer avoidable.

Is Michael Carrick the right man?

Or has Manchester United once again mistaken familiarity, sentiment and hope for a genuine football strategy?

Carrick’s honeymoon was always going to end. What matters now is what happens when the goodwill disappears and the results become the only thing being judged.

Because this is Manchester United.

And somewhere along the way, the club’s standards appear to have changed.

What exactly are INEOS doing?

The most confusing thing about Manchester United right now may not be the manager.

It may be the people making the decisions above him.

INEOS arrived promising a new era of sporting discipline, better decision-making and higher standards.

So explain this.

Why give Erik ten Hag a new three-year contract after Manchester United finished eighth, only to sack him roughly three months into the new season?

Why appoint Ruben Amorim specifically because of his 3-4-3 system, then sack him just as the players were beginning to understand and adapt to it?

And then replace him with Michael Carrick!!!

Which club seriously believes Michael Carrick is the man to replace Ruben Amorim in the middle of a rebuild?

There is nothing wrong with Carrick as a Manager but as a manager of Manchester United? and him being English! Because the decision itself deserves scrutiny.

Putting into consideration that No English manager has ever won the Premier League.

That does not mean an English manager cannot win it.

But when Manchester United are attempting to rebuild one of the biggest clubs in world football, the board has to explain why Carrick was considered the right man for the job.

This isn’t about nationality.

It is about standards.

And increasingly, the standards at board level are becoming difficult to understand.

Maybe Amorim wasn’t the problem

Here is where things get uncomfortable.

Michael Carrick’s points tally between January and May helped convince many United supporters that Ruben Amorim was simply a bad manager.

But perhaps we got it wrong.

Perhaps Amorim wasn’t the problem after all.

Maybe the players are the problem.

Maybe the squad is not good enough.

Maybe the dressing room has become too comfortable.

Maybe the board keeps changing managers because it is easier to sack one man than admit that the wider football operation is failing.

Think about it.

Ten Hag was given a new contract after an eighth-place finish.

Then he was gone three months into the new Three year contract.

Amorim was brought in because Manchester United wanted his 3-4-3 philosophy.

Then, before that project had properly matured, he was gone too.

So what exactly is the plan?

If you hire a manager for a particular system, shouldn’t you give him the players, time and stability required to implement it?

If you don’t, what was the point of hiring him in the first place?

Are the players being protected?

This is another question United supporters should be asking.

Managers come and go.

Players remain.

And yet, whenever things collapse, the manager often becomes the easiest person to remove.

At what point does the club look at the players and say:

You are part of the problem too.

Because a manager can change tactics.

He can change formations.

He can change training methods.

But if players repeatedly fail to perform, changing the manager every time cannot magically transform the culture.

Perhaps Manchester United have been treating the symptoms while refusing to diagnose the disease.

And what if the board is too comfortable?

This is the most controversial question of all.

Manchester United remain one of the biggest commercial brands in football.

The sponsorships are there.

The global audience is there.

The merchandise is there.

The commercial machine continues to operate.

So is the pressure to achieve on the pitch really as great as it should be?

Because if the commercial side of the business continues to thrive while footballing decisions repeatedly fail, there is a danger that the club becomes more obsessed with protecting the brand than building the team.

Maybe that sounds harsh.

But football supporters are entitled to ask.

Are managers being sacked because they are genuinely the problem?

Or are managers sometimes being used as convenient cover for mistakes made higher up?

The referee was wrong. But United had no bite, no desire.

To be fair, United have legitimate complaints about the officiating.

Michael Carrick was furious about the controversial decision to award the goal.

“Where they drew the line was a bit dubious. It’s WORRYING if that’s how the game is seen by the officials.”

He went further:

“How you can say Enzo Fernandez does not interfere with the play literally is beyond me. It’s staggering…”

Lisandro Martínez was equally baffled.

“I think it was offside… I can’t understand the rules!”

And his frustration raises a legitimate question about consistency in Premier League officiating.

But let’s be brutally honest.

Bad decision or not, Manchester United should have beaten a ten-man Manchester City.

That is the part United cannot escape.

They can complain about VAR.

They can criticise the officials.

They can argue about the interpretation of the rules.

And YES the decision was wrong.

But Manchester City had ten men.

United had the opportunity to win the game.

They didn’t.

They can play the victim all they want, but they have themselves to blame.

And now comes the most insulting part

Manchester United’s stated objective remains a top-five finish.

Read that again.

Manchester United.

Top five.

Not the title.

Not a serious challenge.

Not restoring dominance.

Top five.

And perhaps that is the clearest indictment of the board’s standards under INEOS.

Because after years of decline, finishing in the top five may indeed be a realistic short-term target.

But realism is not the same thing as ambition.

And Manchester United supporters should be furious if “top five” has quietly become the definition of success at Old Trafford.

The club has spent years telling supporters to trust the process.

But there comes a point when trusting the process becomes tolerating mediocrity.

And that is where Manchester United appear to be heading.

Carrick’s real test

Carrick still has time.

Four points from four games does not end a Premier League season.

The top five is still achievable.

But the derby defeat has exposed something far more important than the league table.

Manchester United need to decide what they actually are.

Are they rebuilding a football club?

Or are they repeatedly changing managers and hoping one of them can make the existing structure work?

Because if Amorim was wrong, explain why.

If Ten Hag was wrong, explain why he was given a new contract.

If Carrick is the answer, explain why.

And if the players are the problem, why do they keep surviving managerial changes?

At some point, somebody above the dugout has to answer these questions.

Maybe Michael Carrick will get it right.

Maybe he won’t.

Maybe Ruben Amorim really wasn’t the problem.

Maybe the players are the problem.

Maybe the board is the problem.

Or maybe Manchester United have something even more dangerous:

a club that has become so comfortable with mediocrity that it now mistakes survival for progress.

And if that is the case, changing the manager again won’t save Manchester United.

Changing the standards might.