This week, Manchester United’s leadership reportedly met extensively to discuss the current club crisis. After back-to-back ugly losses and an emotionally charged Stretford End backing manager Michael Carrick, the club leadership decided to stick with the manager and not give into the apparent squad spiral.
The backing of Carrick was noted in a report by ESPN as a factor in keeping the former United midfielder in charge, for now.
What also happened this week was a briefing apparently from the Glazer
family perspective, offering a “it was never this bad under our leadership” perspective that barely registered with most fans. Like most attempts to shape the narrative, the one-sided briefs did point out some truths, and it is worth saying that Ed Woodward was at least more ambitious than the current executive leadership under INEOS. What is also worth saying is that the Glazers are leeches who bled the club for years before handing the reins over to the more involved and less successful group that is at the helm now.
What the entire week showed is that any perception of an overarching plan is on the verge of destruction at any moment. Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada have succeeded only in making a more confusing and less talented squad than ever before at Manchester United. It is a constant reminder that no matter how bad things are, they can, in fact, get worse for the once great club.
Backing Carrick is symbolic to some degree. You can’t let the players think they can get away with the recent horrid performances and finger pointing. They’re part of the problem, even if they had been misled in a similar way to Carrick about the club’s summer ambitions and willingness to capitalize on a return European football.
The club’s indecision is its own bad decision, though. Carrick is not the primary problem, and you can’t fire the owner, but you can fire the useless puppets of the owner who seemingly never get on the same page as their bosses or their subordinates.
Whether the current backing of Carrick stands longer than a couple of weeks or not, it does, in theory, buy the club time to make its own moves. That could be scouting out replacement options for Carrick, but it could, and should, mean scouting out replacements for Wilcox and Berrada as well.
They are not the final decision-makers at the club, but they are the current architects of a disastrous stretch that is on the verge of a third managerial search in as many seasons. They’ve done nothing to prove worthy of a third chance to pick a manager to lead a squad that they’ve incoherently assembled. Every day that they’re not out the door is another day spent ignoring the problem, another day spent with leaders unfit to tread the same ground as those that came before them.
