Sacking Carrick would be the easy answer. It would also be the wrong one, or at least an incomplete one. Wednesday's Carabao Cup exit, met with boos and blank-faced apathy from a United support that has long since graduated from anger into something colder, says as much about the people running this club as it does about the man in the dugout.
Jason Wilcox sat in the directors' box looking unamused. That expression needs to come with some accountability attached to it.
£155m on Three Midfielders. One Position.
Let us be clear about what happened this summer. United spent £155m on three midfielders. Three players, one position. Meanwhile, the left-back situation remains a mess, Joshua Zirkzee continues to flatter to deceive up front, and Carrick is already scrambling for a plan B because Luke Shaw, predictably, has pulled up injured.
Someone inside that club made a decision that narrowing their entire recruitment spend into a single area of the pitch was the sensible approach. That decision belongs to Wilcox. And right now, with United sitting 13th in the Premier League after conceding seven goals in four games, it looks like a serious misjudgement.
The defence has been poor. The Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven partnership against Brighton was, by any honest assessment, close to inept. The forward line looks like a collection of individuals rather than a unit. And yet the solution bought in the summer was: more central midfielders. The most successful signing from last year was Senne Lammens from Royal Antwerp, brought in cheaply and delivering consistency. This summer, United paid £50m for Andrey Santos alone, while a cheaper midfield option might have freed up funds to actually address the glaring holes elsewhere. [Are Manchester United as poor as the early Premier League table suggests?](/uprise/football/are-manchester-united-as-poor-as-the-early-premier-league)
Carlos Baleba, the most expensive of the three new midfielders, has not yet been available. He may well add mobility and change things. But the wider squad imbalance will not disappear just because one player returns to fitness.
One Man Takes the Heat, Another Takes the Wages
Carrick returned to United in January. He did not oversee the long-term recruitment strategy. Wilcox did. And Wilcox has form here: he was part of the setup that retained Erik ten Hag after an eighth-placed finish, then sacked him anyway for a poor start the following season. He then backed Amorim, a manager whose tactics did not fit the squad and who had no financial support to reshape it. United finished 15th and lost a Europa League final to Tottenham. Amorim was dismissed after 14 months. Wilcox was handed another chance.
The irony is that United supporters understand this. The boos on Wednesday were for the performance. The apathy is for the whole rotten structure above it. But in public, Wilcox stays quiet. He gave an internal interview in October 2025 when things were briefly going well. Since then, silence. In Europe, sporting directors face scrutiny as a matter of course. [The growing rift between United fans and the club shows this tension is not going away.](/uprise/football/febrile-manchester-derby-awaits-amid-growing-rift-between-united-fans)
Carrick is not without blame. Going two goals up against Brighton inside 10 minutes and losing 3-2, barely touching the ball for the final 80, is not a tactical masterclass. He is accountable for performances. But he cannot be held accountable for a recruitment strategy that was settled before he had any meaningful input.
The verdict is straightforward: if things continue to deteriorate and only Carrick pays the price, United will have learned nothing from the last two years. Wilcox helped create this situation. He should have to stand in front of it.