Carrick myth debunked as Manchester United manager candidate ‘moving up the list’ fast

There is a staunch defence of Michael Carrick as Manchester United manager, as well as thoughts on how to fix both refereeing and set pieces.

It is a meaty old Mailbox, including some love for Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s delightful Old Trafford job cuts.

But first: leave Carrick alone.

Taking the Michael

On the subject of whether Carrick should get the job, there’s two things moving in opposite directions. The first, obviously, is Carrick himself. We’re getting results, we’re doing better than expected and that, very understandably, means his name is moving up the list,

The second part is the number of names above him on the list. Tuchel (who I thought we’d be targeting) has extended, as has Ancelotti (not that I thought that was ever likely). That leaves Enrique as the only “proven” candidate on this list, and getting him out of PSG seems unlikely. Who else is there? Iraola? Nagelsman? Glasner?

Everyone else represents a punt. The thing is, if you were to give them the job and they start with an underwhelming run, the reaction of both fans and media will be “should’ve stuck with Carrick”.

This, ultimately, is the inherent trap of appointing an interim for such a long period. If they do well, unless you’re bringing in a Klopp/Pep/Ancelotti/Enrique level manager, they have to get the job full time, or they’ll cast a shadow over the next guy.

Personally, I don’t think we need to rush anything. Let’s see how things stand at the end of April, by which time the club should know which of their other targets would come and whether they’re worth chucking Carrick overboard for. My hunch is he’ll get it. As our recruitment seems wildly improved, he should fare okay.
Lewis, Busby Way

Can we all please stop patronising Michael Carrick as a mere vibesman? Enough is enough.

Gaptoothfreak’s assertion that Carrick resembles a substitute teacher “who lets you watch a documentary when the class has been chaotic of all term” is just the latest idiotic, tired, and frankly offensive rendition of the Carrick-as-vibesman diagnosis. Might we need some reminding of what the job of a football manager actually is?

If you’re not sure, don’t worry, I will reveal the Big Secret of Football Management below. First, though, let me quote another line from Gaptoothfreak’s email:

“United need a manager appointed because he is unquestionably the best strategic choice for the next era — not because the dressing room smiles more and Bruno looks slightly less like he’s arguing with invisible spirits.”

Let’s park for now the suggestion that there really is any decision in football – a notoriously difficult sport to predict and plan for – which is “unquestionably” the best. I’m more interested in the tedious idea that all Carrick has done during his time in charge is give United fans and players a comforting shot of nostalgia. It is so obviously untrue that it’s laughable, but yet I see it repeated ad nauseum everywhere from the ivory Sky Sports tower to the lowly depths of the F365 mailbox.

So, if he’s not exclusively acted as a Vibes Delivery Mechanism, what has Carrick actually done during his time as interim United boss? I want you to really think about this one. Trust me, it’s nto a trick question.

…

That’s right! He’s won football matches!

And to return to my earlier point, what is a manager’s number one job?

… you guessed it again! To win football matches!

This is all to say that if Carrick does get the job permanently it will be because he has proven that he is capable of actually, ehm, doing the job. Which, as I said, is to win football matches. Maybe it will work out in the long run, maybe it won’t. It wouldn’t seem any more of a gamble than appointing the Crystal Palace manager, in my opinion anyway. But in any case, can we please stop pretending that all Carrick’s done in this run of games is smile in press conferences and remind people of the Fergie years?

Best.
Matt, MUFC, Dublin

City’s 60-point penalty

I suspect you could run a special edition of Mediawatch featuring only headlines that imply it has been decided.

But I’m curious about others’ opinions. If your club were facing a massive points deduction for cheating, would you prefer it be announced immediately upon the verdict, or before the start of the next season season? I suspect City would rather take the hit now. A 60-point deduction amounts to relegation for any points total below about 95, but I think I’d prefer an unexpected, immediate relegation to starting a season at -60 points. If you managed form like Arsenal’s form in 2025-26, it would take you 28 matches to reach 1 point, and you’d end the season with a maximum of 31 points.

Wouldn’t it be miserable to watch an entire season of football, knowing your club has maybe a 1% chance of staying up? Those cup runs sure would be important. Nah, give me a season where my club is chasing a title and then relegated at the end. One massive blow, rather than a season of meaningless wins, draws and losses. You have to imagine the players would feel even more strongly about that impossible uphill struggle.

Speaking of cup runs, I want Barcelona in the “second” round of the UCL. Beating them would be far sweeter than beating Chelsea, and Barcelona are not at their very best these days.
Chris C, Toon Army DC (What would City’s relegation do to the UEFA national coefficients?)

Debt not equal to loss

A lot of uneducated people do not know the difference between a DEBT & a LOSS (lookin at you Neil), and that just shows.

Debt in essence is what every single corporation and club in the world operates with. Just FYI, Spurs debt is 700m, Brighton Everton hovering around 400-500m and 18 out of 20 clubs have a net debt, the exception being Manchester “115” City & Fulham (Source: BBC article, 2024). Manchester United are somehow in 30m+ PROFIT for the year, whereas the clubs you mentioned failed PSR due to cumulative losses over 3 years. It’s that simple. I repeat, DEBT IS NOT EQUAL TO LOSS ya numpty.

Now some clubs have taken debt for new stadiums, and some like United have it due to terrible transfer decisions & the f***in GLASERS who have STOLEN over 1.2 BILLION in cash from our club between 20025 & 2026 (Source: BBC Article 2025) and keep servicing their loan with interest payments on a yearly basis. And that my friend is the reason United fans are always up in arms against them. So yes, United are in a precarious situation and the debt is insanely high without even discussing a new stadium. But generally that is part and parcel of how businesses function, debt at a rate that is lower than your earning % from investments. Basic business.

Hope this clears things up for some of you.

On a finance based side note, thank f*** Jim threw out half of the bloated and useless staff, which was the LARGEST in the league by quite a distance. Now again, time for basic math for those who think this has no impact. 450 jobs x an average salary of lets say 60k yearly, is 27 million saved add to that the perks removed and some of them being on higher salaries, and thats 35-50m saved. And none of these jobs have made 1% difference in how the team or club functions. We still have the largest staff in the league.

It’s going to be a long and slow progress, but with Europe, a couple of good player sales, decent sponsorship deals & being a bit frugal will save this club in the long term & Jim knows that. Tough calls have to be made or Manchester United can sink faster than the Titanic.

Regards
Aman 

Neil Raines has fallen into the common, boring, and f*****g infuriating trap of equating Man Utd’s debt with outrageous spending, insinuating that ‘the blazers’ have stitched up the rules to protect us. Neil, respectfully – are you a clinical moron? ‘The Blazers’ could’ve done us a favour – and indeed the whole football ecosystem a favour – by not allowing some parasitical American venture capitalists to complete a highly leveraged buyout of Man Utd, a club that was completely debt-free, in the first place. That’s where our debt comes from, despite the fact we’ve paid over a billion in interest payments for the pleasure.

‘Just keep spending whatever you want’ you say, while also skewering ‘Top Hat Twat Rat Jam Nitty Gritty’ because ‘He’s got rid of all the jobs’. How did you square that circle, Neil?
Ben (Have you read Troilus and Cressida? There’s a line that seems apposite: ‘The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue!’)

A brief riposte to Neil Raines, who makes a song and dance about United being in debt to the tune of £1.3bn. We are only in so much debt thanks to the leveraged takeover of our monetarily-lecherous owners! A “proper FFP” would have stopped this type of takeover in the first place. The fact we often still turn a profit whilst being relatively unsuccessful on the pitch is frankly astounding.

If anything, opposing fans should be glad of the debt our American leeches have inflicted upon us – otherwise our finances would be stratospheric! We’d likely have your team’s Watkins and Rogers tearing it up at Old Trafford on the biweekly, purchased using the change found down the back of the sofa. So thank your lucky stars for our debt, young man!
Garey Vance, MUFC 

It’s all about them

Interesting recent emails requesting that PGMOL refs just do their jobs.  I completely agree but it raises the question of what they see their jobs as being.

When Villa won at Spurs in the FA Cup, in the first few minutes there was a late challenge on Matty Cash that warranted a yellow card, but the ref let it go, not even a foul.  A few seconds later Kamara is felled by Paulinha.  Foul given but no yellow card.  Cue the commentators bringing in “expert” Darren Cann, a former assistant referee on why no yellows given.  Darren, in a manner implying that he is a member of some kind of wise and esoteric club that needs to explain the blindingly bleedin’ obvious to the Hoi Polloi, states that the ref is “letting the game breathe”.

The implication is that the officials are not just there to apply the laws appropriately and consistently, they are far more important than that. It brought to mind Phil Dowd’s infamous “managing the occasion” bullshine when excusing himself for not sending off Vidic for DOGSO early in the 2010 League Cup Final.  The upshot of this particular piece of refereeing arrogance and incompetence?

Kamara is out for the rest of the season, which could contribute to Villa not qualifying for Champions League, which could cost them tens of millions.  Having been the victims of an awful piece of refereeing last season at Old Trafford that arguably cost them a CL place for this season.  But at least we console ourselves that the ref let the game breathe.  That’s ok then.  Thanks Darren, you absolute melt.

PGMOL’s role is, and should be, to apply the laws of the game consistently and fairly. Nothing else.  That should apply from minute one to minute 90+.  If a goal is a goal in the first minute, a yellow card is a yellow card in the first minute too.  Ditto a red card.  If a foul is a foul on the half way line, it’s a foul in the penalty box as well.  There is nothing, as far as I know, in the laws about “higher thresholds” for a penalty foul than for a foul anywhere else.  If wrestling someone to the floor is a foul in general play, it should be penalised at corners and other set pieces.

Then there is the massive inconsistency between what’s considered a foul on a defender and what is required for an attacker to get a penalty.   Compare the slight touch/sniper shot on Gabriel with the blatant two-handed push in the chest as Tammy Abraham was about to shoot against Brighton, or the blatant barge in the back on Buendia at Bournemouth as he was about to latch on to a rebounded shot.   I’m certain that fans of other clubs could cite multiple examples affecting their own teams, but note that Villa have been awarded precisely zero penalties in the league this season.  Because, of course, Villa players are never the victims of the ABH/GBH/Axe murder apparently required to meet the imaginary threshold.

(For balance I will say Ezri Konsa is a persistent sniper victim when touched on the back and I hate it and so do most of the Villa fans I know – but he wouldn’t do it if the refs weren’t so weak).

We all know full well those Villa incidents are given anywhere else on the pitch.  We all know there’s a very high likelihood that touch on Gabriel isn’t given anywhere else.   So who are PGMOL to decide they do or don’t meet some kind of imaginary threshold?  Who are PGMOL to decide when or whether to apply the laws depending on the time or the area of the pitch?  If this really is the way arrogant egotistical officials see themselves, as some kind of guardians of the game rather than mere functionaries, then the game is in a lot of trouble and PGMOL is not fit for purpose.

Yes, it seems it really is all about them, but they are the real bottlers in this league.
Kevin Villa (and don’t get me started on Chris Kavanagh against Newcastle – Ye Gods!)

Cut my life into set pieces, this is my last resort

There have been a couple of mails recently that have touched on the topic of goalkeepers requiring slightly more protection at corners, prompted in part from the scrums / mauls we have been seeing on our screens, so I thought I would pen a couple of thoughts on this from an ex-goalkeepers perspective.

In terms of background, I played for close to a decade at step 5 of the ladder (for the uninitiated, the sort of level where you likely get paid beer / pocket money for playing) before moving down to step 7 to play for a local club and then vets team. I can honestly say in all that time that I never really experienced the sort of focussed blocking that appears to take place on goalkeepers in the prem and the like – inference being that it appears to be a more modern day focused coaching approach.

So let’s talk through the central point on whether the direct blocking / interference of goalkeepers is fair as this is clearly the fork in the road that leads to the divisive opinion on this topic.

I will try to articulate some thoughts on that from the goalkeepers standpoint in terms of facing a corner (and would be pleased to hear peoples counter arguments to this).

Goalkeepers are given the immediate competitive advantage of being able to use their hands which gives them a naturally larger span of influence compared to the rest of the players in the box. Attacking coaches know this and want to take this away, but appear to be doing this in a manner of sacrificing a couple of their players to restrict the goalkeeper from moving from his spot. These players aren’t really attempting to play the ball, they are attempting to play the man, which to me implies deliberate obstruction, a punishable offence when not in control of the ball.

Refs should be smelling more of a rat when they can see that a player is not actually looking at the delivery of the ball, having their gaze placed instead on the person they wish to impede. That statement applies to both attackers and defenders – we see many examples of defenders solely focussing on grappling their man rather than the ball itself and its tough to justify that action when they are facing in the opposite direction of the ball.

So what could potentially be done ?

A clear idea would be to try and establish some kind of buffer zone, say of about a metre / arm length, whereby attackers cannot knowingly encroach on the goalkeeper space / start point for a set-piece. I stress the word knowingly because clearly if someone is facing the opposite direction from the keeper (and looking at the ball delivery) and then the keeper steps into that gap, the attacker should not be sanctioned.

Nor am I saying that goalkeepers should be able to expect to have this exclusion zone benefit all across the box – some more thought would need to go into that, but the 6 yard box coverage seems a logical place to start on that front.

So in effect the attackers would need to be broadly aware of the goalkeepers start point for the set-piece and attempt to respect the buffer zone. I strongly feel this should be policed by the refs through the lens of common sense – ie. whether someone is respecting the spirit of this buffer zone rule, rather than forensic checks by VAR on whether someone was only 70cm away rather than 1 metre.

Should this be a rule just for corners or all set-pieces ?

I would say for all, but I would quickly highlight that the offside rule would mean that it only really becomes effective / applicable from corners, wide free-kicks within 10 yards of the goal-line and long throws from near the box.

What would be the consequence of this rule being used ?

From an arm-chair fans perspective you would hopefully see a slight pivot away from the blunt set-piece focussed play that has certainly become more prominent in the prem in recent times. The inference of that being that teams would have to place a greater emphasis on creating goals from open play, which hopefully would then result in a better spectacle for the average viewer.

There may well be a section of people who enjoy watching all these set-pieces, but to bring in a parallel, there are people who watch rugby union and love watching the scrums – frankly, these people need to get out more and perhaps they would then meet others who cherish the open flowing game, who clearly are the majority.

We may in time actually see a small increase in the ball time in open play as teams spend less time setting up their set-pieces (… maybe).

Will close there.

I’d be interested to get a sense of whether people can see the logic in the above or if I’m being seen as the salmon swimming upstream.

I do not sit in the camp of goalkeepers needing to be protected at all costs – I very much recognise that it is a contact sport and it won’t surprise readers to hear that I have broken numerous things across my years playing the game (leg, jaw, collarbone, ribs …. hearts).

All I want to see is that goalkeepers are given the ability to utilise the tools that the laws provide them with in order to help their team and that opponents who seek to deliberately impede that do not get the benefit.
Sparky, LFC (…. and for the love of god can the authorities please try to do something meaningful about bringing in retrospective action for players who feign head injuries !!)