Manchester United manager Michael Carrick holds up his hands
The cycle of doom that has ultimately engulfed every Manchester United manager since Sir Alex Ferguson now has the hapless Michael Carrick in its unforgiving grip.
Carrick recreated a familiar scene - the same one acted out by predecessor Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after a 4-1 loss at Watford in November 2021 cost him his job - by raising his hands in apology to supporters who had just seen United humiliated by the same scoreline at Como in the Champions League.
Carrick is the seventh full-time manager since Ferguson stepped down in 2013 after winning 38 trophies during 26 years in charge.
Since then there have been days of success under Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Erik ten Hag, and moments of hope, but the final outcome is always the same - dismissal.
Carrick will need something miraculous to change that storyline, with results poor and revolt within the dressing room as defender Lisandro Martinez took aim at director of football Jason Wilcox after the Champions League defeat at Atletico Madrid, while captain Bruno Fernandes questioned the tactics in Como.
It hints at something rotten in the state of United.
So should it really be crestfallen managers standing in front of those disappointed supporters?
Can it really be United's managers every time? Should not even more scrutiny now be aimed at those who appointed them, then decided the direction of the club?
Have United effectively, through years of decay, decline and appalling decision-making, become the unmanageable club?
There have been those seven full-time managers - David Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho, Solskjaer, Ten Hag, Ruben Amorim and Carrick. There have also been spells as interims for others such as Ryan Giggs, Ralf Rangnick, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Darren Fletcher.
United's leaders, from former executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward to the ruling Glazer family and now part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, have effectively tried every trick in the book to recreate the Ferguson era.
And failed miserably.
Moyes, an ill-starred appointment led by Ferguson, found the job too big for him after leaving Everton. Van Gaal and Mourinho were tried and trusted operators with stellar track records of success at Europe's superpowers. Solskjaer was effectively the anti-Mourinho without any sort of managerial track record that suggested he would succeed at United, but appointed after a successful spell in temporary charge.
Ten Hag got the job on the back of leading a superb young Ajax side to the Champions League semi-final. Amorim was regarded as European coaching's hottest young property when he was lured from Sporting in Lisbon.
All ended up sacked. All eventually found the unwieldy beast that is United impossible to tame.
Van Gaal won the FA Cup in 2016. Mourinho won the League Cup and the Europa League in 2017. Ten Hag won the FA Cup in 2024 with a landmark win against Manchester City.
Slim pickings compared to previous glories.
United, however, have not become a bad or dysfunctional club overnight. They have been heading towards this point ever since the succession plan to Ferguson - not easy, admittedly - was botched so badly.
Carlo Ancelotti, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp all felt able to resist the lure of Old Trafford, leading to what should have been red faces all round in December 2019, when they were all managing within 35 miles of each other in the north-west but none were at United.
Ancelotti was at Everton, Guardiola was at Manchester City. Klopp was at Liverpool. United had Solskjaer, an over-sentimental choice made on the back of a feelgood interim spell. He lasted less than three years.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer holds his hands up
With every passing day, Carrick looks like Solskjaer Mark II.
Carrick is a former fan favourite who did well in temporary charge, but whose previous managerial career was a sacking at Championship club Middlesbrough. Solskjaer shared that same unwanted distinction, sacked by Cardiff City in September 2014 after only nine months in charge as they struggled in the Championship.
It has all brought United to the point where the question must be asked. Since Ferguson's departure, has it ever been worse than it is now? In recent times, has there ever been less hope than there is now? Has morale ever been lower than it is now?
United will always find a manager should they require one, but their current parlous circumstances mean they are no longer the attraction they once were.
They will not have the pick of the globe's finest. They will need to persuade someone that there is a future at Old Trafford that contains something other than future dismissal, a sobering state of affairs for the self-styled "biggest club in the world".
Given the current state of United's squad, there is no guarantee a manager with a high-class track record would have a quick fix, or any fix at all, without huge investment.
Carrick is front of house and, on current evidence, will pay the price for United's failings. He is a repeat of the Solskjaer mistake, an easy choice made after taking them back into the Champions League, a comfort blanket with supporters that has now been torn away by poor results.
Manchester United part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe in heated discussion with director of football Jason Wilcox - with CEO Omar Berrada in between - at Wolves in December 2025
There are significant culprits elsewhere, led by Ratcliffe.
United fans have held regular protests against the Glazers since they took control in 2005, their leveraged purchase loading debt on to the club. They have remained majority owners, despite the level of angered aimed towards them from supporters, unmoved by years of ill feeling.
In turn, Ratcliffe's move into part-ownership alongside the Glazer family has meant fans turned on him for his association and business partnership with the hugely unpopular Americans.
Ratcliffe, like other successful billionaires before him, has found running a football club is a different world to the one he inhabited previously.
He has suggested he leaves big footballing decisions to others, such as Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada, but instability and rank bad decisions have come with Ratcliffe as United's leading figure.
United were set to sack Ten Hag before the FA Cup final win against City, but the Wembley win earned him an unlikely stay of execution. He was then given a contract extension and £200m in transfer funds, only to be sacked six months later. The pay off to Ten Hag and his staff was more than £10m.
It was a catastrophic move to keep Ten Hag, both financially and in a footballing context.
Then there was the farce of the pursuit and subsequent sacking of sporting director Dan Ashworth in 2024.
He arrived in July with a reputation as one of the game's shrewdest administrators, regarded as a prized capture, only to leave after a behind-the-scenes disagreement five months after his appointment.
The impression of a club in chaos, in which United still exists today, was confirmed by the stark fact Ashworth actually spent as long on gardening leave waiting to join from Newcastle United as he did in post at Manchester United.
It was suggested Ashworth had been held responsible for Ten Hag staying, but another theory was that he wanted to target English managers such as Graham Potter and Gareth Southgate rather than Amorim.
United instead pursued Amorim, whose obsession with a 3-4-3 system had already persuaded Liverpool to look at Arne Slot to succeed Klopp. It was the fault that holed his reign below the waterline.
Amorim was gone after 14 months, but not before a parting blast at United's hierarchy and a hostile meeting with Wilcox.
Even before Carrick's appointment, morale at Old Trafford had been low after savage cost-cutting under Ratcliffe, with many staff leaving, among other "efficiencies".
This season ill feeling among an already dissatisfied fanbase boiled over after United launched a ticket-touting investigation in the summer.
Although they admitted to underestimating the number of fans who shared their account details, and toned down some of the threats around season-ticket confiscation if supporters failed to respond as requested, United officials defended the investigation.
If the football has been underwhelming, finances - which Ratcliffe promised to improve - still remain an issue.
Figures revealed in September confirmed overall debt remains at £1bn, despite Ratcliffe's cost-cutting. United did announce record revenue of £678m and a £23m operating profit despite not playing in Europe for the first time in a decade. This represented a huge shift from the £113m loss in 2023-24.
United also confirmed spending £64m buying land for the new stadium, which Ratcliffe hopes can be his legacy at the club and proof of his desire for success.
In August Berrada said the club remained on track to build the projected 100,000-capacity stadium at an estimated cost of more than £2bn.
However, it is the record of bad decisions backstage and lack of success on the pitch that is the unpalatable cocktail currently poisoning United.
It leaves them facing the possibility of more churn and instability as the clubs they would regard as competitors threaten to become a spot in the distance.
