Eddie Howe Emerges as Top Contender to Succeed Carrick at Manchester United
Jason Wilcox has quietly settled on his preferred successor to Michael Carrick at Manchester United – and Eddie Howe is emerging as the name at the top of his list.
Carrick remains in the dugout for now, but the ground beneath him is shifting.
Carrick on the brink
Five defeats in United’s first 11 games in all competitions have dragged the club into yet another early-season crisis. The 4-1 humiliation at Como in midweek cut deepest. A Champions League debutant from Serie A dismantled United, exposed their fragility, and then watched them implode in the post-match fallout.
On the pitch, United looked lost. Off it, the dressing room unity that club figures keep insisting is intact took another hit.
Bruno Fernandes, the captain, broke ranks and publicly questioned Carrick’s tactics. It was a rare moment of open dissent from the dressing room leader, and it has not gone unpunished in the court of public opinion. Wayne Rooney went in hard, labelling Fernandes and Lisandro Martinez – who had taken aim at technical director Jason Wilcox the previous week – as “selfish babies”.
The noise around Carrick’s future grew so loud that many inside and outside the club wondered if he would even make it to the weekend. He has. United have confirmed he will lead the team against Bournemouth on Sunday and face the media on Friday afternoon.
For now, he survives. But the conversation has already moved on to what comes next.
Wilcox backs Carrick – but lines up Howe
According to The Athletic, Wilcox is still, officially at least, backing Carrick. The technical director is not yet pushing for a change. That doesn’t mean he isn’t preparing for one.
Co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who has already shown he is willing to be hands-on with football decisions, could overrule Wilcox if he decides the time has come to act. Ratcliffe is even said to be leaning on AI tools as part of the process of identifying United’s next manager, a very modern twist to an old Trafford problem.
While the algorithms whirr in the background, Wilcox is doing things the traditional way: watching, sounding out, and ranking candidates. TalkSPORT’s chief football correspondent Alex Crook reports that Wilcox is now “leaning towards Eddie Howe” as his preferred option if Carrick’s position collapses.
Howe is not a new name in the corridors of Old Trafford. Under former sporting director Dan Ashworth, United had already explored the idea of bringing in the then Newcastle boss as a replacement for Erik ten Hag. Ashworth pushed for Howe before the club ultimately turned to Ruben Amorim.
Now, with Howe out of work after his summer departure from Newcastle, the timing looks very different.
Why Howe?
Inside the recruitment structure, there is not total agreement. Director of recruitment Christopher Vivell is understood to be advocating for Julian Nagelsmann. The former Bayern Munich coach, now on the market again, brings a different profile: younger, more continental, tactically elastic.
Wilcox, though, is drawn to Howe. The key reason is simple and blunt – Premier League experience. Howe knows the division, its rhythms, its scrutiny, its pressure. He has rebuilt clubs before, lifting Bournemouth through the leagues and then reshaping Newcastle into a Champions League side.
Crucially, Wilcox’s voice carries weight. His opinion “is likely to hold more weight in the eyes of Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazer family” than others in the football department. If he pushes for Howe, that recommendation will land at the very top of the club.
Howe has not rushed back into work since leaving Newcastle. Reports have suggested he wanted a longer break from the intensity of management. Even so, the feeling among those close to the situation is that he would be interested if the United job formally came his way. This is the sort of offer that can change a manager’s timetable.
Other names fit – but don’t move
Wilcox has not limited his thinking to Howe and Nagelsmann. Unai Emery and Fabian Hürzeler both tick many of the boxes he has set out for the next United manager.
Emery’s work at Aston Villa has been one of the standout managerial jobs in Europe: structure, identity, results. He fits the criteria. So does Hürzeler, the highly regarded young coach now at Brighton, whose progressive ideas and clear playing style have attracted admirers across the continent.
But there are hard realities.
Emery would be extremely expensive to prise away from Villa, a club on the rise with ambitions of their own and no intention of losing their architect. Hürzeler, for his part, is said to be content where he is, not ready to abandon his Brighton project for the turmoil and spotlight of Old Trafford.
Both match the profile. Neither is realistically attainable right now.
A club waiting on a trigger
So United move towards the weekend with a manager under pressure, a dressing room under scrutiny, and a hierarchy quietly sketching out a future that may or may not arrive within days.
Carrick leads the team out against Bournemouth knowing that every result now feels like a referendum on his reign. Wilcox has his preferred replacement. Ratcliffe has the power to pull the lever.
If Bournemouth turn up and deepen the crisis, does the Eddie Howe era at Old Trafford begin to move from contingency plan to inevitability?
