When Manchester United appointed Michael Carrick as permanent head coach in May, they would have hoped it brought an end to interim and caretaker bosses.
And yet, somehow, the man they initially brought to the club as interim head coach in January is the interim head coach again.
Since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson, United have had Ryan Giggs, Carrick, Ralf Rangnick, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Darren Fletcher, Carrick again and now Carrick for a third time all take temporary charge.
bet365 cut Michael Carrick from 11/10 to 10/11 after the Roma game to still be in charge on 1st January 2027, a move that would surely see the club sucked into a genuine relegation battle in the Premier League.
Prior to Roma, each of the last three results felt like it would be the end of Carrick: the 4-1 defeat to Como after which captain Bruno Fernandes publicly criticised Carrick’s tactics; the abysmal 3-0 defeat to Bournemouth at home; the 2-0 defeat to Chelsea in which the red mist descended upon Lisandro Martinez.
Going 2-0 down on Tuesday evening in farcical fashion ramped up the animosity from the Stretford End, but lost in the animosity that permeates through Manchester United at the moment and the ire aimed at the boardroom is the fact that Manchester United are an atrociously coached team.
There have been virtually no highlights this season to suggest anything could turn the side’s fortunes around, and that includes the Roma win. The 2-0 defeat to Hull City on the opening weekend was one of the worst results in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era. Alarm bells continued to ring with the win against Ipswich Town.
There was the 2-2 draw with Everton in which United twice failed to hold on to a lead. There was the defeat at home to 10-man Manchester City, then the EFL Cup defeat to Brighton having led 2-0. Next came the 1-1 draw with Fulham which involved a comical own goal from Lisandro Martinez and a spell of football Gary Neville said was the worst 15 minutes of football he'd ever seen. It took a late deflected strike from Matheus Cunha to rescue a point.
After the international break, United were played off the park at home to Tottenham before losing 2-0 to Atletico.
The 1-1 draw with Leeds was just about acceptable, but the nature of the 4-1 defeat to Como three days later ought to have been the end, in part because nobody was especially surprised that Manchester United had just lost a game of football 4-1.
Back-to-back defeats to Bournemouth and Chelsea hardly moved the needle either, with the loyal United fan base sticking by Carrick.
Of course, if Carrick hadn’t represented the club 464 times as a player, winning every major honour at Old Trafford, and were the club not in such a mire off the pitch, the sentiment would be much worse.
The shows of support for Carrick are couched in dissent from a fan base who recognise the issues run deeper than any head coach.
And while there are bigger issues to resolve at Old Trafford, the most pressing one right now is the man in the dugout.
It was the Fulham draw when Neville criticised United players for a lack of effort. The criticism was harsh and perhaps even unfair, given their boss's apparent dismissal of fitness work.
When Carrick returned to Old Trafford, he was able to capitalise on the excellent conditioning efforts carried out by Ruben Amorim and provide the new manager bounce by simply playing players in their natural positions. But performances worsened throughout the rest of the season even if results never quite caught up.
It's now clear that Carrick doesn't seem to value the physical work on the training pitch; Carrick the footballer played the game safe in the knowledge he had the best footballing brain on the pitch. But he's not working with players who share his supreme intelligence and they must all work harder than he did.
It must be said these are not bad players. The likes of Luke Shaw, Martinez, Kobbie Mainoo, Andrey Santos, Youri Tielemans, Carlos Baleba, Amad Diallo, Bryan Mbeumo and Cunha all have the talent to play for a side competing for UEFA Champions League football and that's before considering skipper Bruno Fernandes, reigning PFA Player of the Year.
This isn’t a team who simply aren’t trying; this is a horrendously coached outfit. Players seemingly have no idea where they're ever meant to be during a game, and it's leading to the sloppiest compilation of goals ever seen by a team competing at the top level of European football.
That could be forgiven if they were a potent attacking unit, like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's United, but prior to Roma, they'd scored six goals in nine games.
All coaches must sacrifice some attacking potency for defensive robustness or vice versa and the best coaches are the ones who find the balance between the two, maximising their team’s output at both ends of the pitch.
But there’s not a single thing Manchester United are good at. The famous tweet from the David Moyes era about how the side “must improve in a number of areas, including passing, creating chances and defending” rings true 13 years down the line, and the first half of the Roma game saw the club sink to depths not experienced under Amorim, widely accepted as the club’s worst manager in the modern era.
Any remotely well run organisation would have called time on this sorry debacle weeks ago, yet United have been unable to pull the trigger, presumably waiting until the international break at which point they can bring a new man in, leaving Carrick in situ as an interim boss once again.
The inquest for the likes of Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox must soon begin as to how the club are back in this position not 12 months after removing Amorim, but the best thing for Manchester United’s immediate future is for Carrick to be moved on as soon as possible.
