Michael Carrick took charge of Manchester United in January 2026 as an interim manager after Ruben Amorim was sacked. At that point, United were 6th in the Premier League and nobody expected much from a man whose only full-time managerial job before then was at Middlesbrough in the Championship.
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Then he started winning.
He beat Manchester City 2-0 and then went to Arsenal, the league leaders at the time, and won 3-2. In his first 9 Premier League games, he won 7 and drew 2. That is 23 points, the joint-best start any manager has had in Premier League history.
By the end of the 2025/26 season, he had also beaten Liverpool and Chelsea. No team picked up more points than United in the final 16 games of the season. They finished 3rd and qualified for the UCL. In May, the Englishman was handed the job permanently.
During all of that time, he was not just keeping the seat warm for someone else.
He was the reason United looked like United again.
Fast forward to October 2026 and the story is completely different.
Manchester United have won just 2 of their 11 games in all competitions this season. In the Premier League, they have 1 win in 7 games, and it is the club’s worst start to a top-flight season in 40 years.
They lost at home to Manchester City and Brighton. Brighton also knocked them out of the League Cup. They drew with Everton, Fulham, Tottenham, and Leeds. In the Champions League, they lost 2-0 to Atletico Madrid and then got thrashed 4-1 by Como.
That is 7 games without a win.
And fans wonder, how did the same man go from breaking records to being the favorite in the sack race in just 5 months?
The easy answer is to say Carrick has been found out. But that answer is lazy.
This is where it can be tricky and confusing – who is really in charge at Manchester United?
At Old Trafford, Carrick is the head coach. He trains the players, picks the team, and faces the press. But he does not decide who comes into the club and who leaves. That job belongs to Jason Wilcox, the director of football and the man in charge of transfers.
Ruben Amorim saw this clearly. After the 1-1 draw at Leeds in January, he said he came to Old Trafford to be the manager of Manchester United and not just the coach. He also told Wilcox and the scouting department to do their job.
Less than 24 hours later, he was sacked.
Carrick has learned from that. Ahead of the Como game, he said he does not need any reassurances from the club’s hierarchy. After Lisandro Martinez criticized the club’s recruitment, Carrick said the squad was in a fantastic place. He does not complain about the players he has been given. He just takes the blows.
That is why I call Carrick a dummy.
Not because he is a fool. A dummy is what a shop puts in front of the window. It wears the clothes and faces the public, but it did not choose a single thing it is wearing.
Carrick is wearing the squad that Wilcox built. When results go bad, it is his face people see.
But this is where Jason Wilcox comes in.
Wilcox was promoted from technical director to director of football in the summer of 2025. In his first window, he got it right. Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Sesko, and Senne Lammens all arrived, and they were a big part of Carrick’s run last season.
The summer of 2026 is a different story.
United were back in the UCL after 2 seasons away. This was the window to build a squad that could compete in the Premier League and in Europe. Instead, Wilcox spent £155m on 3 players – Youri Tielemans, Andrey Santos, and Carlos Baleba. All 3 are midfielders.
The other arrivals were Karl Darlow, a 35-year-old backup goalkeeper on a free transfer, and Tynan Thompson, an 18-year-old winger from Tottenham.
No left-back came in, even though Wilcox wanted Newcastle’s Lewis Hall. Luke Shaw is the only senior left-back at the club, and he has a long history of injuries. He missed both the Tottenham draw and the Atletico defeat.
No striker came in either, even though Rasmus Hojlund was sold to Napoli. Sesko had a shin injury at the end of last season and it has flared up again this season.
Even Baleba, the marquee signing, picked up an injury in pre-season while he was still at Brighton. United went ahead with the deal anyway.
Add Amad Diallo who has been out since pre-season, Manuel Ugarte with an ACL injury from the World Cup, and Matthijs de Ligt who has not played since October 2025, and you can see why Carrick’s team looks so thin.
Some will say Carrick’s run last season was easier because he took over with only 17 league games left and no cup football. That is true. And it is exactly why this squad needed more depth for a season with the UCL in it.
The players have noticed. After the 2-0 loss to Atletico Madrid, Martinez said, “I expect more from our technical director.” He later apologised, and some believe he is pushing for a move since his contract runs out next summer. But reports say his view reflects the general frustration in the dressing room over recruitment and squad depth.
Even inside the club, things are not smooth. Wilcox and the director of recruitment, Christopher Vivell, were reportedly divided over signing Manu Kone in the summer.
And yet, ESPN and Sky Sports report that Wilcox still has the full backing of the club’s leadership.
Clearly, Carrick is not blameless. After the Como defeat, even Bruno Fernandes questioned his tactics, and a team that got more points than anyone in the last 16 games of last season should not be losing 4-1 to Como.
But a coach can only work with what he is given.
Since Wilcox arrived at United in 2024, Erik ten Hag and Ruben Amorim have both been sacked. If Carrick goes too, that will be 3 managers in 2 years, and the man who builds the squad will still be sitting in the same office.
Having put that into place, the January window is where Wilcox has to answer. United need a left-back and a striker at the very least, and the club needs to hold the director of football to the same standard they hold the man in the dugout.
If that is done and the injured players return, Carrick will get a fair chance to show that last season was not a fluke.
If United sack Carrick and keep Wilcox, the next manager will just be the next dummy in the window.
