Manchester United have dismissed Michael Carrick, ending a stay that never settled into anything resembling control. The club said the decision was taken after concluding that “the club has come to the extremely difficult conclusion that a change is necessary in order to achieve our ambitions.”

Carrick had been handed three more matches in a last attempt to justify the two-year deal awarded in the summer. What followed only reinforced the sense of drift. United lost, won and drew across three wildly different games, each one adding to the disorder around the team rather than easing it.

There was promise before collapse against Chelsea, a recovery from a dreadful first half to beat a Roma side that then went further in the second period, and then 98 chaotic minutes against Aston Villa on Sunday. Across all three, Carrick’s influence appeared minimal. Lisandro Martínez’s head loss, favourable penalty calls and Zion Suzuki’s weaknesses in the air loomed larger than the manager charged with restoring order.

United are now expected to move towards U.S. men’s national team manager Mauricio Pochettino, with formal steps already underway to appoint the Argentine.

Carrick had been brought in to steady the club after Ruben Amorim’s departure in January, much as United once turned to Ole Gunnar Solskjær after José Mourinho. His strongest spell came in the second half of last season, when a return to 4-2-3-1, players in preferred positions and a smaller set of regular starters helped stabilise performances. The calmer tone around him also contrasted sharply with Amorim’s approach. As Carrick said of the word “philosophy”: “I hate that word.”

Yet the effect faded over the summer. Bruno Fernandes summed up the initial idea by saying, “Michael came in with the right ideas of giving the players responsibility, but also some freedom to take the responsibility on the pitch for the decisions that are needed,” but that freedom soon tightened. Fernandes even pushed back against instructions to “half-press” against Como.

By the end, Carrick had become more observer than architect. Even the fans’ support during the slide into the relegation zone hinted at how little he could alter. Starting Diogo Dalot at left back may have been exposed against Aston Villa, but the wider issue remained the same: if the club do not recruit better, no manager can conjure solutions from nowhere. In the end, Carrick paid for the moment when his magic ran out.

Relegation has long felt unthinkable for Manchester United, but that possibility is no longer easy to dismiss. At the second international break of 2026-27, the club sit 18th and the numbers around them make for grim reading. They could even have been bottom had Crystal Palace not upset Liverpool and Patrick Dorgu not struck a 96th-minute equaliser against Aston Villa. Through 10 matches, every other side in the division has won at least twice as many games as the Red Devils.

Opta’s supercomputer still does not fancy United to go down, yet a 21.57% chance is uncomfortably close to the danger zone faced by Nottingham Forest, Fulham and Ipswich Town. That alone has sharpened the debate over what relegation would do to a club of this scale.

BBC Sport analysis last season estimated that a possible Tottenham Hotspur relegation, which was ultimately avoided, would have cost £261 million ($346.6 million) in revenue for the following campaign. United are a larger commercial force, but they also have more to lose if the drop affects every income stream at once.

Parachute payments would soften the immediate blow, with clubs relegated this season due around three years of support worth roughly £110 million ($146.1 million). Yet United’s operating costs were above £700 million ($929.6 million) last season, so the gap between top-flight and Championship income would still be severe.

Commercially, the damage could be wide-ranging. adidas reportedly pay around £90 million ($119.5 million) a year, although that could be halved if the club are not in the Premier League and reduced further if they are also outside the Champions League. The same report suggested the figure could fall to £35 million ($46.5 million), while the contract, worth up to £900 million ($1.2 billion) across 10 years until 2035, could also be cancelled at one year’s notice.

United’s front-of-shirt deal with Qualcomm, carrying the Snapdragon brand, runs to 2029 and is not said to include the same performance penalties. Commercial income would not vanish overnight, having totalled £317.3 million ($420.1 million) in 2025-26, but the club’s pull would inevitably weaken.

Broadcasting is another major concern. Premier League clubs in 2024-25 received £29.8 million ($39.6 million) from the U.K. pot, £59.2 million ($78.6 million) internationally and £7.9 million ($10.5 million) centrally, while Championship clubs received around £11 million ($14.6 million). Those on parachute payments would not get the full amount, leaving broadcasting revenue at about £4 million ($5.3 million).

Matchday income would also be tested. If United were no longer hosting Premier League opponents, demand from less committed supporters would likely fall, forcing prices down. Relegation for a club of this size has never happened in the Premier League era, and that is what makes the prospect so hard to measure.

Marcus Rashford has now missed Manchester United’s last five matches, a spell that has kept him largely out of the spotlight while scrutiny has fallen elsewhere in recent weeks.

There had been optimism that he could be brought back into the side this season after his hoped-for move to Barcelona collapsed, with the Catalan club deciding Anthony Gordon represented a better investment. Since returning to England, though, Rashford has still not registered a goal or assist.

His difficulties may help explain why a player who delivered 28 goal contributions last season, largely from an understudy role, has struggled to influence games as a starter. That has come at a time when the issue for the team has not been scoring goals.

Rashford has not looked fully fit since the World Cup, when he first picked up a hip problem. He was included by England for the September-October international window, but withdrew before reporting. After club football resumed, he played just one minute off the bench against Tottenham Hotspur, then went on to feature for 66 minutes in Madrid.

With no other appearances behind him, Thomas Tuchel opted for other choices when naming his November squad last week.

The problem is now understood to be more than a hip issue. The Telegraph reported that it has spread to his groin, and that is the injury keeping him out. He is said to have visited a groin specialist in Dublin with a member of Manchester United’s medical staff.

Rashford is described as having “played through the pain” in an effort to help Carrick, who did not close the door on him despite the summer suggesting a permanent separation was the preferred outcome for the player. The approach worsened the issue. He even reportedly offered to take a place on the bench for the Halloween defeat to Chelsea, but the club turned down the offer.

The Ireland visit brought a “new recovery program”, and there is cautious hope that he could be available for the first game after the international break on Nov. 22. That would mean Liverpool at Anfield.

It would be a significant stage for a homegrown Manchester United player. Rashford has already delivered against Liverpool before, scoring in FA Cup wins in 2021 and 2024, and netting the winner in a Premier League game in 2022.