Manchester United’s Seven-Game Winless Run Raises Structural Questions

What changed

Manchester United have gone seven games without a win in all competitions. Michael Carrick’s team lost 4-1 at Como in the Champions League, while defender Lisandro Martinez criticised director of football Jason Wilcox and captain Bruno Fernandes questioned the tactics after defeat at Atletico Madrid.

Why it matters

The striking part is not one bad result. It is the pattern behind it.

Since Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013, United have had seven full-time managers: David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Erik ten Hag, Ruben Amorim and Carrick. Each eventually lost the job.

That makes Carrick’s apologetic gesture to supporters feel less like an isolated image and more like a recurring scene. United have changed managers, styles and senior decision-makers, but the club keeps arriving at the same destination.

There have been trophies: the FA Cup under Van Gaal and Ten Hag, plus Mourinho’s League Cup and Europa League. But those successes have not produced a stable sporting direction. Even elite appointments such as Van Gaal, Mourinho and Ten Hag could not make the structure last.

The report’s “unmanageable club” diagnosis is analysis, not an established organisational finding. But the current crisis does put the spotlight beyond the dugout. If players are openly challenging recruitment leadership and tactics while results collapse, replacing another manager may only reset the same cycle.

The immediate question is whether Carrick can change it. The larger one is whether United’s leaders can finally identify a failure that does not end with the manager standing alone in front of the supporters.