Michael Carrick\u2019s contract through the end of the 2027\u201328 season formalises what the club quietly signalled: he is the manager tasked with delivering ‘Project 150’. That responsibility arrives after a turbulent period in which United fell to 15th in the Premier League last season, yet the board retained the original ambition. When questioned about the plan in the summer of 2025, Berrada told the fanzine United We Stand: “Why not aim for it?” and added, “Why not do everything in our power? I firmly believe we can do it.” He later reminded supporters that there would be “two or three summer transfer windows” available to execute the plan.<\/p>\n
Carrick\u2019s first run as permanent manager offers evidence that the project is not merely aspirational. With the same squad that struggled for consistency under Ruben Amorim, United have taken more points from their first 16 matches in charge than any other Premier League team across the equivalent period. That run has produced an average of 2.25 points per game, a rate that projects to 85.5 over a full season. For context, champion Arsenal\u2019s maximum tally will be 85.<\/p>\n
There are clear reasons for optimism: the squad has improved markedly from a 51-year low recorded 12 months earlier, and recent signings brought in for Amorim \u2014 Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko and Senne Lammens \u2014 have all “made a substantially positive difference working to Carrick\u2019s instruction.”<\/p>\n
Carrick\u2019s profile is rooted in long association with the club. Born and raised in suburban Newcastle and first established in east London, he arrived at Old Trafford in 2006 and said he “felt the magic of Manchester United” from his first visit. He featured in teams that won back-to-back-to-back Premier League titles, won the Champions League and reached two other finals. He won the club Players\u2019 Player of the Year in the ‘Van Persie’ season, became captain, completed 464 appearances, joined the staff and, by December 2021, after a three-match spell as caretaker boss, left to begin his managerial career having spent more than 15 years at the club.<\/p>\n
On his appointment he said, “I know what it takes and hopefully I can give that experience a little bit to the players and they can feed off it, and we can keep pushing for more.” The comparison with other managerial trajectories in the game underlines the view that internal knowledge can matter when executing a long-term project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carrick’s permanent role ties him to Project 150 as United recover from a 51-year low in 2025\/26 UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,172],"tags":[1162,317,260],"class_list":["post-13994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-benjamin-sesko","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}