Carrick sacked: How every Man Utd manager has fared in the post-Ferguson era

Ron Atkinson's side also had eight points at this stage that season, and he was sacked in early November to make way for Sir Alex Ferguson.

Forty years on, Carrick has gone less than six months after he was handed a two-year contract for finishing third.

He is the seventh permanent appointment to fail since Ferguson retired in May 2013. Eleven different men have picked the team in that time, and between them they have won five major trophies and no league titles. Here's how each of them stack up.

David Moyes (July 2013 - April 2014)

Record: P51 W27 D9 L15 - win rate 52.9%

Ferguson's chosen successor signed a six-year contract and lasted 10 months. He inherited the champions and won the Community Shield in his first competitive game, which turned out to be the high point.

Moyes took 57 points from 34 league games and was sacked on April 22nd, 2014, with United seventh and out of the Champions League places for the first time since 1995. A run to the Champions League quarter-finals, where they lost to Bayern Munich, was the only real credit in an otherwise disappointing first act post-Ferguson, and it set the scene for things to come.

Ryan Giggs (April - May 2014, interim)

Record: P4 W2 D1 L1 - win rate 50%

Giggs took the last four league games as player-manager, collected seven points and brought himself on as a substitute in the final home match.

United finished seventh on 64 points, at that point their lowest Premier League placing.

Louis van Gaal (July 2014 - May 2016)

Record: P103 W54 D25 L24 - win rate 52.4%

Van Gaal did the job he was hired for in year one, finishing fourth with 70 points to restore Champions League football.

The second season was harder to love: United scored 49 league goals, went out of the Champions League at the group stage and finished fifth on 66 points, missing the top four on goal difference.

He won the 2016 FA Cup against Crystal Palace, the club's first major trophy since Ferguson's departure, and was sacked two days later. His 136 points from 76 league games works out at 1.79 per match.

Jose Mourinho (May 2016 - December 2018)

Record: P144 W84 D32 L28 - win rate 58.3%

Going by the numbers, Mourinho is in fact the best of the lot, although you'd never have thought so at the time.

His first season brought the Community Shield, the League Cup and the Europa League, even if sixth place and 69 points meant the European trophy doubled as the route back into the Champions League.

In 2017/18 United finished second with 81 points, still their highest total since Ferguson, though it left them 19 behind Manchester City. The third season went the way Mourinho third seasons tend to go, and he was dismissed on December 18th, 2018, after a 3-1 defeat at Liverpool, with United sixth on 26 points from 17 games.

His league return of 1.89 points per game has not been matched since, and the Special One still describes his second-place finish with the Red Devils as one of the biggest achievements in his trophy-laden managerial career.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (December 2018 - November 2021)

Record: P168 W91 D37 L40 - win rate 54.2%

Solskjaer arrived as caretaker, won 14 of his first 19 games, knocked Paris Saint-Germain out of the Champions League and was given the job permanently in March 2019.

United finished sixth that season, then third on 66 points and second on 74, the latter 12 points behind City and the nearest anyone has come to a title challenge in this period. He is the longest-serving of Ferguson's successors and the only one of the permanent appointments to leave without a trophy: there were four semi-final defeats and a Europa League final lost to Villarreal on penalties in 2021.

The signing of Cristiano Ronaldo that summer was followed by a 5-0 home defeat to Liverpool, and a 4-1 loss at Watford ended it with United seventh.

Michael Carrick (November - December 2021, caretaker)

Record: P3 W2 D1 L0 - win rate 66.7%

Carrick's first spell lasted 11 days. He beat Villarreal to secure a place in the Champions League last 16, drew at Chelsea and beat Arsenal 3-2, then left the club altogether when Ralf Rangnick arrived.

Ralf Rangnick (December 2021 - May 2022, interim)

Record: P29 W11 D10 L8 - win rate 37.9%

Rangnick was hired as an interim with a two-year consultancy to follow. The football never resembled the pressing game he is known for; United went out of the FA Cup to Middlesbrough and the Champions League to Atletico Madrid, and he took 37 points from 24 league games.

They finished sixth on 58 points, then a club low for the Premier League era, with a goal difference of zero. The consultancy never happened: Rangnick took the Austria job instead.

Erik ten Hag (May 2022 - October 2024)

Record: P128 W70 D23 L35 - win rate 54.7%

Ten Hag is the only post-Ferguson manager to win trophies in separate seasons.

His first year was the most complete campaign of the era after Mourinho's second: third place, 75 points, the League Cup and an FA Cup final. The second season, however, was a bit of a mess, with United eighth on 60 points, a negative goal difference and bottom of their Champions League group.

Somewhat miraculously, it ended with an impressive FA Cup final win over Manchester City that persuaded the new INEOS regime to extend his contract. Three months into the following season they sacked him, with United languishing in 14th on 11 points from nine games.

Ruud van Nistelrooy (October - November 2024, interim)

Record: P4 W3 D1 L0 - win rate 75%

Four games, three wins, two of them against Leicester, whom he subsequently helped to relegate that same season as their manager.

Van Nistelrooy has the best win rate of anyone on this list but was not kept on by the incoming head coach. Leicester fans must be delighted by that decision.

Ruben Amorim (November 2024 - January 2026)

Record: P63 W24 D18 L21 - win rate 38.1%

Amorim cost United a compensation fee to Sporting and delivered the worst league record of any of their Premier League managers: 58 points from 47 games, or 1.23 per match.

The 2024/25 season finished with United 15th on 42 points, their lowest placing since relegation in 1974, and a Europa League final defeat to Tottenham - who had finished 17th - that also cost them European football.

A League Cup exit on penalties at fourth-tier Grimsby followed in August 2025. He was sacked on January 5th, 2026, with the team actually sixth, his relationship with the hierarchy having deteriorated faster than the results.

Darren Fletcher (January 2026, interim)

Record: P2 W0 D1 L1 - win rate 0%

Fletcher stepped up from the academy for eight days, drew 2-2 at Burnley and lost an FA Cup third-round tie at home to Brighton. He did not hang around.

Michael Carrick (January - November 2026)

Record: P32 W15 D8 L9 - win rate 46.9%

Carrick's second spell was really two different jobs. As interim boss, he won 12 of 17 league games, took 39 points and worked wonders to lift United from seventh to third on 71 points, earning Champions League qualification and a permanent deal in May.

Then the fairytale turned into a horror movie. From August, he won three of 15 in all competitions. The league record read one win, five draws and four defeats, with 19 goals conceded and no victory in eight.

Brighton knocked United out of the League Cup from 2-0 down, and Champions League wins over Sabah and Roma sat alongside defeats at Atletico Madrid and a 4-1 loss at Como. Sunday's 4-4 draw with Aston Villa, rescued by two stoppage-time goals in what proved his final game, summed up both the fighting spirit and the abysmal defending.

Even after this autumn, Carrick's 1.74 points per league game is better than Ten Hag's 1.72 and Moyes's 1.68. It did not save him.

Mourinho finished second and was gone by the following Christmas, Solskjaer did the same, and Ten Hag's third place bought him one more year. At United, a top-three finish has tended to work more like an accidental notice period.