One month after the warnings were aired, Manchester United have changed manager again.<\/p>\n
Michael Carrick\u2019s exit has not arrived as a shock. United have won only one of their last 11 matches in all competitions, and their lone Premier League victory of 2026\/27 came against newly promoted Ipswich in August. By the time of the November international break, the club were in the relegation zone, a position they have not occupied this late in a season since the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Mauricio Pochettino is now lined up to take over, but the wider problems at the club go far beyond the dugout. That point was underlined by the frustration expressed by Mart\u00ednez after the Atl\u00e9tico Madrid defeat, while Ralf Rangnick\u2019s old warning about the need for \u201copen-heart surgery\u201d still hangs over the operation.<\/p>\n
Carrick had given United genuine hope when he first arrived in January. He beat Manchester City and Arsenal straight away, then guided the side to third place after winning 12 of his final 17 league games. No manager in the division collected more points in that spell, and with Champions League football secured, the decision to appoint him permanently was obvious.<\/p>\n
Yet the summer brought optimism without adequate follow-through. United spent heavily, but not broadly enough. Their three first-team additions were midfielders Carlos Baleba, Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans, at a combined cost of $190 million. It was a familiar pattern, but one that left clear gaps untouched.<\/p>\n
Left back remains unsettled. United gambled on Luke Shaw staying fit, but that assumption has not held. With Patrick Dorgu more natural higher up the pitch and Diogo Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui stretched beyond their comfort zone, the balance has been badly off.<\/p>\n
At centre back, the same issue persists. Harry Maguire\u2019s legs have caught up with him, Mart\u00ednez and Matthijs de Ligt have both been missing through injury, and Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven are not yet ready to carry the load for long periods.<\/p>\n
Further forward, the squad lacks a reliable left-sided option and now, after \u0160esko\u2019s injury, it is also short of true centre-forward depth. Mbeumo has been asked to play centrally, while Joshua Zirkzee is the only other senior striker available. United did not merely need signings this summer. They needed the right ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United changed manager again, but the real damage was done in a summer that left key positions exposed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,2019,2028],"tags":[242],"class_list":["post-22422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-manchester-united-news","category-manchester-united-transfer-news","tag-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22422","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=22422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}