Manchester United Fired Michael Carrick in 18th Place and Hired Pochettino the Next Day

On Thursday, Manchester United fired Michael Carrick, with the club 18th in the Premier League after one win in its first ten matches, its worst start in decades by any count you prefer. On Friday it hired Mauricio Pochettino, who starts Nov. 18 on a two-and-a-half-year deal. According to Sky Sports, United will pay about £7.4 million to get him out of his freshly signed contract with the U.S. men's national team. He'll coach the Americans through this international break first, then report to Manchester. His first match is expected at Anfield, against Liverpool, which is like starting a new job by being shoved into the boss's pool.

Carrick had been the interim after Ruben Amorim was sacked in January, and then got the job for real. Sports Mole notes it's the first time in the club's 148-year history it has sacked two managers in one calendar year. A hundred and forty-eight years, two World Wars, the Glazers, and it took 2026 to get there. That's not a slump. That's an achievement in the wrong direction.

And Pochettino. United wanted him in 2022 and picked Erik ten Hag instead. Four years and several managers later, they've come back to the man they passed over, which is the move every divorced man makes at the high school reunion. Pochettino, for his part, gets to leave a U.S. job after signing a new contract, which is the most American thing he's done since arriving. The Americans got a World Cup out of him and a cash payment on the way out. In soccer terms that's a draw.

The trouble with Manchester United isn't the manager, and everyone knows it, the way everyone knows the restaurant's problem isn't the waiter. The club changes coaches the way a man with a bad back changes mattresses, hopeful every time, sore every morning. Pochettino is a fine coach. So were the last five.

There's a saying in England that the table never lies. It doesn't have to. It just sits there in 18th and lets the club do the talking.