When United beat Liverpool 3-2 last Sunday to seal Champions League qualification, I asked a straightforward question. Now that Carrick has achieved the season’s goal, what is INEOS going to decide that’s worth? (Read that post here: Carrick Has Done Enough. Now INEOS Has to Decide What That’s Worth.)
On Tuesday, May 12, Fabrizio Romano provided the answer. Manchester United and Michael Carrick are set to continue together next season and beyond, with talks in their final stages and everyone at the club on the same page. After months of deliberately vague messages, the picture is finally becoming clear.
Whether it is the right decision will only be answered over the next few seasons. What is worth examining now is how United arrived at it, and what that process reveals about the gap between how INEOS presents itself and how it actually operates.
When INEOS took operational control of the club, one of the implicit promises of the new regime was a more professional, structured approach to decision-making. No more reactive sackings. No more panic appointments. A sporting director, a director of football, a coherent process. When Amorim was let go in January, the club’s public messaging reinforced this: the search for the next manager would be thorough and far-reaching. Names like Julian Nagelsmann, Andoni Iraola and Enzo Maresca were floated around. The impression given was that United were shopping at the top of the market.
What has happened instead is a more familiar story. An interim did well enough that removing him became politically impossible. The fanbase, the players and the results all aligned behind Carrick. Romano’s report makes it sound less like the conclusion of a rigorous search and more like an inevitability that everyone quietly accepted and is now dressing up as a decision.
That matters from a communications standpoint because of what it signals about how INEOS actually operates versus how it presents itself. The gap between stated process and actual outcome is where reputations take damage. If United told the world they would conduct a proper search and instead arrived at the same place they would have been in February without any search at all, that is not a process. That is managed drift.
To be fair to Carrick, the numbers make a strong case for him. He has beaten Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool. He secured Champions League qualification. He has the dressing room, including Kobbie Mainoo, who signed a new contract to 2031 and said players want to “fight for him and die for him.” He told the press after the Liverpool win that managing United “feels natural.” These are not the words or numbers of a man who has obviously failed.
And fans are divided in a way that is itself a PR challenge. A significant portion of the fanbase wanted a proven, high-profile appointment. For instance, someone with a Champions League pedigree who would signal genuine ambition. Keeping the interim, however well he has performed, reads to some supporters as the cheap and convenient option rather than the bold one. INEOS has to manage that perception while also communicating why continuity is itself a form of ambition after years of instability.
The strongest argument for Carrick is not just results it is the culture he’s seemingly built. He has simplified the football, and created an environment where players want to perform. That is harder to rebuild once it is lost than any tactical system.
The communications challenge now is to frame the Carrick appointment not as the path of least resistance but as a deliberate choice. One made because of what he has built, not in spite of the inconvenience of changing course. Whether that framing holds up, and whether Carrick can sustain this form with Champions League football and a full transfer window behind him, is the question United cannot yet answer.
Is keeping Carrick the right call, or should United have aimed higher?
