Michael Carrick’s future as Manchester United manager is in the balance after a humiliating 4-1 Champions League defeat by Como on Wednesday night.
THIS tale is as old as 13 years in the making. There is a precise moment in every Manchester United season when optimism doesn’t just die. What actually happens is it packs its bags, books a low-cost flight on a budget carrier and requests a full refund, only to be given a runaround by their AI chatbot that resolves nothing.
Earlier today, on the scenic banks of Lake Como, that moment arrived inside a mere 120 seconds. Nico Paz took one look at United’s midfield, noticed that Andrey Santos was standing roughly three postcodes away from his mark, and curled a finish past Senne Lammens with the casual elegance he delivers week in, week out.
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It marks the relentless acceleration of the “Carrick is not the right man for the job” cycle. A predictable sequence that begins with a fluke top-four finish or a domestic cup, moves straight into unneeded buys while ignoring massive structural holes, and inevitably crashes into continuous humiliation.
From there, the script demands the standard sequence: apologise to the traveling fans, take personal responsibility, protect the dressing room divas, accept the sack on a Sunday afternoon, collect a massive severance payout, and eventually head to another part of Europe to look like a tactical genius again.
Look closely at Michael Carrick on the touchline against Leeds last week, pointing frantically at his head and shouting for his players to think. The right question is: think about what, coach?
Should they think about why you spent so much money on Carlos Baleba, only to bench him against Como, bring him on at half-time and watch him get booked faster than a GrabCar driver speeding to accept his next fare? Or perhaps think about Andrey Santos, who started the match looking as though he had won a funfair contest to play football for 45 minutes, earned a yellow card for violently lunging at thin air and was subbed before he even had time to sweat?
Honestly, let’s talk about this. You set your alarm for an early morning kickoff in Malaysia, wake up in the hazy morning air, eyes full of sleep, paying Astro subscriptions every single month just to watch eleven millionaires get outrun by a team coached by Cesc Fabregas, only to get trolled online by the Hartono brothers. Indonesia didn’t just fill the skies with haze; their citizens are now burning United fans across social media.
The tragedy of Carrick’s United is not merely that they lose; it is the breathtaking rhythm with which they perform their incompetence.
Against Leeds at Elland Road, they dragged themselves through a 1-1 brawl that felt less like top-tier European sport and more like a schoolyard fight behind a community hall. They dropped Marcus Rashford, cited “squad management” and played for a single point as if Elland Road were the Santiago Bernabéu.
Then came Como, where against a club operating on a fraction of Old Trafford’s commercial revenue, Carrick deployed a midfield with all the structural integrity of a piece of roti bakar left out in the rain.
When asked about the game plan afterward, captain Bruno Fernandes essentially threw his manager under the team bus, pointing out that the squad wasn’t even instructed to press, visibly wondering if his agent could find him a January move to Saudi Arabia before Sunday’s kickoff against Bournemouth.
This brings us right back to the United Manager Circle Progression Tracker for October 2026:
Step 4: Lose humiliatingly to Como (Completed)
Step 5: Apologise to the travelling supporters (Completed)
Step 6: Take full personal responsibility (Completed)
Step 7: Refuse to call out dressing room divas (In Progress)
Step 8: Get sacked (Pending)
Carrick is currently floating somewhere between Step 7 and Step 8. The board is evaluating, the pundits are drafting their eulogies and Marcus Rashford is likely watching highlights, wondering if he can get his spot back just in time for the next manager’s honeymoon period.
If you’re a United fan reading this at your office desk in Malaysia right now, staring into your monitor and dreading an inbox full of emails, do not despair. Step 9 is paying out very soon, and Step 1 is only a few short months away.