Michael Carrick looks set to pay for Manchester United’s miserable start to the season with his job this week – but removing him won’t fix the club’s deep-seated problems.
Carrick took more points than any other Premier League manager between his arrival as Ruben Amorim’s interim replacement in January and the end of last season.
He was rewarded with the job on a permanent basis but the Carrick era has quickly unravelled and United entered the November international break 18th in the Premier League, out of the Carabao Cup at the first hurdle and middling at best in the Champions League.
Carrick’s dismissal is the latest shameful episode for Ineos, who took control of football decisions in February 2024 when Sir Jim Ratcliffe came on board as a minority owner.
Daily Mail Sport understands CEO Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox still retain Ratcliffe’s backing despite being the subject of fan chants calling for their dismissal at recent matches.
Berrada and Wilcox have failed time and time again and yet seem to escape accountability. Here are nine Ineos mistakes that have dragged Manchester United into the unlikeliest of relegation battles – and raise the question of whether they should be trusted to get the next managerial appointment right.
Michael Carrick’s dismissal is the latest shameful episode for Ineos, who took control of football decisions in February 2024 when Sir Jim Ratcliffe came on board as a minority owner
Carrick looks set to pay for Manchester United’s miserable start to the season with his job this week – but removing him won’t fix the club’s deep-seated problems
1. The Ten Hag Debacle
Erik ten Hag looked to be on thin ice from the moment Ineos walked through the doors at Carrington.
One of his first conversations with the new hierarchy saw the Dutchman offer to put together a plan to overhaul United’s failing data department. The offer was rejected.
‘I offered my knowledge and abilities to Ineos to help them to construct, but they were of the opinion that they already knew everything,’ Ten Hag told The Athletic recently. ‘They were convinced of, say, the philosophy, the strategy, the work methods. But they came from petrochemicals, from Formula 1, from cycling. Top football demands something totally different.’
That summer, Ineos were caught on the hop by the groundswell of support to keep Ten Hag after United beat rivals City in the FA Cup final, when all indications were they had been ready to sack him. Ineos were put in an awkward spot. That said, they still openly flirted with other managers just days after United’s Wembley victory.
Future England boss Thomas Tuchel met with Ratcliffe in Monaco before he dropped out of the race. Gareth Southgate, Mauricio Pochettino, Thomas Frank and Roberto De Zerbi were considered as Ten Hag remained in limbo, all while United navigated the situation without a sporting director or a CEO.
In the end, with tail between legs, an Ineos delegation flew to Ibiza to interrupt Ten Hag’s holiday and agreed to extend his contract by a year, make changes to his coaching staff, as well as make promises for the upcoming transfer market.
Ineos were caught on the hop and kept on Erik ten Hag (right) after United beat rivals City in the FA Cup final, when all indications were they had been ready to sack him
‘They promised me loyalty, they promised me backing, they promised communication, that we get aligned,’ Ten Hag explained. ‘We spoke about the issues. But the promises, they didn’t keep.’
According to Ten Hag, Ineos went back on their word having said they would not sell Scott McTominay, who joined Napoli that summer for £27.5million, and the manager was sacked 116 days after his deal was extended with another £200m splurged in the transfer window.
By the time Ten Hag was finally dismissed, with a compensation package of £10.4m for him and his coaching staff, Ineos had wasted close to a quarter of a billion through indecision.
2. Ashworth embarrassment
Ratcliffe relentlessly pursued Dan Ashworth as he sought an elite sporting director to lead the new sporting structure. He believed the Englishman to be ‘clearly one of the top sporting directors in the world’ and ‘a very capable person’.
Ashworth spent five months on gardening leave after United eventually agreed a near-£3m compensation package with Newcastle United to get him, only to be gone after five months in the North West.
Ratcliffe would go on to blame Ashworth for the decision to stick with Ten Hag and there was a sense that Ashworth was not on board with the move to bring Ruben Amorim in. It all culminated in his shock exit after a 3-2 home defeat by Nottingham Forest in which he was escorted through the press room at Old Trafford with his head bowed en route to a meeting where he was sacked.
Ashworth was paraded as a move that showed Ineos could deliver on their ‘best in class’ mantra, only for them to ditch him embarrassingly quickly.
Dan Ashworth (second right) was paraded as a move that showed Ineos could deliver on their ‘best in class’ mantra, only to embarrassingly ditch him less than six months later
3. Brailsford’s ‘marginal gains’
Sir Dave Brailsford, one of Ratcliffe’s most trusted lieutenants, was also an unmitigated disaster. He started off as a crucial figure behind the scenes and his ‘marginal gains’ mantra became a key focus for everyone as he led the renovation of the Carrington training base.
Brailsford drove the appointments of Omar Berrada and Dan Ashworth, and was one of the key men behind ‘Mission 21’, United’s bid to win a 21st Premier League title, and ‘Mission 1’, to win a first Women’s Super League title. Both fell under the ‘Project 150’ umbrella he was particularly proud of, to win titles in the club’s 150th anniversary in 2028.
Sixteen months after coming in, Brailsford was removed from day-to-day operations and earlier this year he fully separated from the club by coming off the board.
Brailsford ran football operations at a time of mass redundancies, fans being alienated by ownership, a failing team that produced its worst Premier League finish of 15th, and millions wasted in the transfer market on players that quickly depreciated in value.
4. Ruthless redundancies
Ruthless job cuts, something key Ineos figures have long insisted were essential for the health of the football club, totally destroyed morale and have, according to some remaining staff, completely changed the club for the worse.
In July 2024, staff were told of the need to cut 250 jobs, as company credit cards were cancelled, and staff were asked to contribute towards expenses. In February 2025, Ineos announced a further 150-200 jobs would need to be cut all while austerity measures – the scrapping of free lunches among them – escalated.
All of this against the backdrop of the senior executives continuing to be paid handsomely for gross levels of under-performance.
5. Promoting Wilcox
Having arrived as a technical director working under Ashworth, Wilcox soon found himself thrust into the biggest executive job in the Premier League, as director of football at United.
Omar Berrada (right) is a close friend and supporter of Jason Wilcox (left) and trusts him implicitly, as does Ratcliffe, who believes he has the ‘best eyes’ at the club
He pitched up at United having navigated close to nine months in the same role at Championship side Southampton. Prior to that his expertise had been across at Manchester City in youth development.
Berrada is a close friend and supporter of Wilcox and trusts him implicitly, as does Ratcliffe, who believes he has the ‘best eyes’ at the club. Wilcox was one of the driving forces behind the appointment of Amorim and it was he who would go on to clash with the Portuguese at the end, leading to his eventual sacking.
Wilcox is very hands-on, routinely seen close to training sessions, and has travelled with the team on numerous occasions.
‘When I listen to Jason speak, I get what he’s saying,’ Ratcliffe told The Times in March 2025. ‘He’s a warm character, he’s got a sense of humour, he knows what he’s talking about.’
Wilcox has been accused of interfering too much while not establishing the game model Ineos long promised to implement, regardless of who the head coach is. The director of football was called out in a post-match interview by Lisandro Martinez this season and Wilcox has inexplicably remained in the shadows while players and Carrick face up to the club’s failings.
A patchy recruitment record, all while preparing to search for a third permanent manager in less than 12 months, Wilcox has had next to no positive impact on United’s first team since assuming Ashworth’s job.
6. The Amorim affair
Hurting from the way they totally miscalculated and mishandled the Ten Hag situation, Berrada and Wilcox pushed to convince Amorim to abandon Sporting Lisbon mid-season – something he did not want to do – and bring his philosophy to Old Trafford.
It was explained that his 3-4-2-1 system would take a long time to embed onto a squad that had been playing 4-2-3-1 but United’s decision-makers were undeterred and forked out £11m to get Amorim and his staff in.
It was explained that Ruben Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 system would take a long time to embed but United chiefs were undeterred and forked out £11m to get Amorim and his staff in
A further £250m was spent on the squad the next summer but Amorim’s standing took another pounding following a League Cup giantkilling at Grimsby Town
Hiring Amorim in isolation wasn’t an error. He represented a bright young manager that had a clear philosophy – something Ineos haven’t shown in two and a half years – but he had been overlooked by West Ham and Liverpool.
One well-placed source told Daily Mail Sport that Liverpool compiled a dossier on all the reasons Amorim would not be able to succeed at Anfield, largely down to how many players would need to be recruited to make his vision a successful reality.
Amorim was ‘rewarded’ with just two arrivals in January 2025 in the shape of Patrick Dorgu and Ayden Heaven, while the following summer saw a clash of ideas in terms of transfer targets. Senne Lammens arrived despite Amorim seeking a veteran goalkeeper to replace the hapless Andre Onana.
Amorim guided United to their lowest Premier League finish and lost the Europa League final in Bilbao to Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham Hotspur. A further £250m was spent on the squad with the attack overhauled but his standing took another pounding following a League Cup giantkilling at Grimsby Town.
Relations between Amorim and Wilcox deteriorated severely and they clashed in a meeting on the eve of the trip to Leeds United, which would prove his final game. Amorim unleashed a fierce rant which intimated that figures such as Wilcox and director of recruitment Christopher Vivell were overstepping the mark with their input and that they needed to allow him to be the ‘manager’ of the club.
Having come under pressure to change formation and the style of play, Amorim was sacked the morning after drawing at Leeds.
7. Fitness failures
Rather than actually devise a plan to deliver Amorim’s vision, Ineos instead tried to get clever and turned to Harry Marra, a renowned track and field coach, to come in as a consultant.
He was given the remit of assessing individual player running mechanics, acceleration and deceleration. Mason Mount was one of those who Marra identified and he attempted to adjust the 36-cap England midfielder’s running gait.
Ratcliffe imparted advice on stretching techniques he had learned from running the London Marathon to figures in the Carrington physio room
Add from the episode in which Ratcliffe imparted advice on stretching techniques he had learned from running the London Marathon to figures in the Carrington physio room, you got the picture of an ownership that didn’t seem to understand that top-level football isn’t track, field, or cycling.
Performance on the pitch only got worse after this, not better.
8. Prioritising new stadium over a new left back
Speaking to reporters in Dublin this summer shortly after being given the United job full-time, Carrick used the word ‘push’ almost a dozen times when referencing what the club still had to do in the transfer market.
But Ineos, again believing they are the smartest people in the room, ignored those pleas and stuck to their plan to ‘fix’ one part of the team per summer. It was the attack in 2025, and in 2026 it would be the midfield, with the defence to come next year.
So, despite knowing full well that expecting another injury-free campaign from Luke Shaw was an enormous gamble, they did it anyway and made no defensive reinforcements. It hasn’t taken long for that move to backfire spectacularly.
Instead, the decision was made to purchase land to the tune of £60m so they can plough on with plans for a swanky new 100,000-seat ‘Wembley of the North’ stadium that many fans believe will never be built.
Rather than fixing the team’s defence, United chiefs spent £60m on a slither of land to progress with their plans for a 100,000-seat ‘Wembley of the North’
The way Carrick has been treated in this whole saga has been cruel and a sign of why managers should think twice about taking a job under Ineos
9. Hanging Carrick out to dry
An emergency meeting after a 3-0 defeat by Bournemouth last month looked set to be the end for Carrick until Berrada, Wilcox, Ratcliffe and the Glazers surprised the football world and simply did nothing. Everyone just continued with business as usual with no backing for the beleaguered Carrick.
Defeat at Chelsea, coupled with two frantic displays to come from 2-0 down against both Roma and Aston Villa followed. Then came the revelation on Monday that Berrada and Wilcox had settled on a recommendation to the board that they should sack Carrick. But instead of being sanctioned immediately, Carrick spent seven hours at Carrington on Tuesday to take training and watch an Under 17s match.
We are told yet again that Carrick’s future will finally be decided on Wednesday at a meeting in Monaco, but in the meantime he must carry on until he gets wind he has been officially sacked.
The way Carrick has been treated in this whole saga has been cruel and a sign of just why managers should – and will – think twice about taking a job under Ineos.
