Manchester United to Appoint Michael Carrick as Permanent Head Coach
Manchester United move towards handing Michael Carrick the reins for good, with the club’s football leadership set to recommend he becomes permanent head coach at an executive committee meeting this week.
Omar Berrada, the new chief executive, and director of football Jason Wilcox are aligned: Carrick is their man for next season. Their proposal will go to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, whose word now decides the big calls at Old Trafford. The Glazer family, still majority shareholders, are content to leave football decisions in Ratcliffe’s hands.
All roads, for now, lead to Carrick.
Ratcliffe’s call, Carrick’s moment
The meeting is expected to clear the way for formal talks over a new deal. At Carrington, Carrick is already operating like a man planning the next phase. He is in strategy meetings, shaping pre-season, and within the dressing room and staff there is a growing assumption: he’s staying.
United have not rushed to this point. Andoni Iraola and Unai Emery featured on their shortlist, with background checks carried out on several candidates as the club surveyed the market. The plan had been to wait until the final whistle of the season before making a definitive call.
Champions League qualification changed the tempo.
That 3-2 win over Liverpool did more than secure a place at Europe’s top table. It underlined the connection between Carrick and his players. Match-winner Kobbie Mainoo, speaking to Sky Sports in the aftermath, delivered the line that has echoed through the corridors at Old Trafford: “we want to die for him on the pitch”.
That is the kind of sentiment owners and executives listen to.
In the build-up to that Liverpool game, Carrick met Ratcliffe, with The Athletic reporting that the new co-owner was “showing his support”. The meeting, and the run of results that followed, has only strengthened Carrick’s position.
From seventh to third – and back to Europe
Carrick, 44, returned to Old Trafford for a second interim spell in January. He replaced Ruben Amorim, who had himself followed a brief two-game caretaker stint under Darren Fletcher. United were seventh in the Premier League at the time, 11 points and five places behind Manchester City.
The turnaround has been sharp.
United now sit third, six points clear of Liverpool in fourth with two games remaining. The league table tells the story of a side that has rediscovered structure and belief, without the distraction of Europe and with domestic cups already gone after early exits.
They will return to the Champions League for the first time since the 2023-24 campaign, when they failed to escape the group stage. This time, they arrive with a different mood around the club and a head coach who has already lived the pressure of Old Trafford from the inside.
Carrick’s relationship with United runs deep. As a player, he spent 12 years at the club, made 464 appearances and collected five Premier League titles and one Champions League. He first stepped into the dugout as caretaker manager after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s dismissal in autumn 2021, delivering two wins and a draw before stepping aside when Ralf Rangnick arrived on an interim basis.
He then left to test himself elsewhere, taking over at Middlesbrough in the Championship. Boro were 21st when he walked through the door; they finished that first season in fourth. It was a quietly impressive apprenticeship in management before his return to Manchester.
A decision that shapes the summer
United’s transfer planning is already in motion. Targets are being identified, profiles discussed, budgets weighed. Inside the recruitment department, one factor keeps coming up: players want to know who they will be playing for.
Locking in Carrick would give United a clear sales pitch in the market and a sense of continuity after a turbulent few years on the touchline. It would also allow Carrick to speak freely about his plans.
As is tradition, the manager is likely to take the microphone after United’s final home game of the season on Sunday, when Nottingham Forest visit Old Trafford. Clarity over his future before then would let him address supporters not as an interim figure, but as the man entrusted with the next chapter.
The effect inside the stadium could be powerful. Old Trafford has seen how a single moment of theatre can lift the place: the unveiling of Raphael Varane, the arrival of Casemiro, the sense of a new era beginning. A confirmed Carrick appointment would carry a different kind of charge – not the shock of a superstar signing, but the affirmation of a familiar figure who has already begun to restore standards.
Delay carries risk. Waiting until players scatter for holidays or international duty can create a vacuum, as United discovered when uncertainty swirled around Erik ten Hag’s position even after he lifted the FA Cup in 2024. Authority, once questioned, is hard to fully regain.
Striking the balance
There is still work to do. United must agree contract terms with Carrick and settle the structure of his backroom staff. The expectation is that the current group will largely continue, but details matter at this level and the club will not rush the finer points simply to meet an artificial deadline.
Even so, the sense inside Old Trafford is that a balance can be found – secure the big decision, then refine the rest. If Carrick is, as anticipated, the chosen candidate, confirming him now would crystallise the direction of travel.
United have spent years searching for the right figure to bridge their past and their future. They may already have him in the dugout, guiding them back to the Champions League and, perhaps, to something more.
