Carrick falls. Candidates to train Bruno and Dalot at Manchester United

Michael Carrick has, as it were, the ‘days counted’ in the technical command of Manchester United, following a start of the 2026/27 sports season that is proving to be a real nightmare, with seven losses, five draws and only three triumphs after the 15 official games already played in all competitions.

Red devils set out for the break for international commitments ‘dipped’ in a cycle of 11 games in which they were only able to win one, having the four-ball equality granted last weekend before the Aston Villa, in the Old Trafford, was the ‘water drop’ for the direction.

According to early information, this Tuesday, by the television station ESP NOver the next few days, Vice President Joel Glazer, minority shareholder Jim Ratcliffe, executive director Omar Berrada, and football director Jason Wilcox will meet to make a final decision on the future of former English international.

However, at this moment, everything points to the fact that it will actually fall, even because the first contacts have already been started with a view to hiring the successor, and the USA’s selector, Mauricio Pochettino, appears as the strongest candidate for the job.

The Argentine has a contract valid until the end of the 2030 World Cup, but the historic English training would not rule out the possibility of activating the termination clause contained in it, worth ten million dollars (8.9 million euros), to manage to ‘rescue it’, immediately.

The 54-year-old coach, remember, has a wide knowledge of English football, where he worked for long periods, first at Southampton (between 2013 and 2014), then at Tottenham (between 2014 and 2020), and more recently at Chelsea (in 2023/24), where he was not so happy.

Eddie Howe (who was fired from Newcastle at the end of July), Julian Nagelsmanm (who left Germany's top team at the end of the last World Cup) and Kieran McKenna (who abandoned Ipswich Town at the end of the last campaign) are for now the main alternatives on the table.

Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot in expectation

This probable ‘psychological whipping’ arises less than a month after Bruno Fernandes came to the public to point out Michael Carrick as the main culprit for the heavy defeat suffered by Manchester United in the trip to Stadium Giuseppe Sinigaglia, before Como, by 4-1, in play to tell the Champions League.

The Portuguese international was ‘punished’ the following weekend, being relegated to the bench of alternates, in the heavy defeat suffered before Bournemouth, in Old Trafford, for 0-3, for the Premier League, but it ended up being ‘forgave’, and it even struck out, against Aston Villa, by adding a goal and assistance.

Much less happy was Diogo Dalot, who committed the great penalty that resulted in John McGinn's attempt at 48 minutes, and who ended up being loudly booed by the Red Devils' own fans at 66 minutes, when the coach chose to replace him with Patrick Dorgu (who would ‘save’ a point, already in the compensation period).