Cesc Fabregas pulled his players back with ten minutes left and still won 4-1. That's where Manchester United are right now.
The defeat to Como 1907 in the Champions League — a club playing in their first European campaign in decades — has pushed Michael Carrick to the very edge. The Telegraph called it "the kind of performance that costs a manager his job." The Guardian went with "shameful defeat." Neither is wrong. Seven competitive matches without a win, 13th in the Premier League, and a captain publicly criticising his manager's tactics in the post-match. The walls are closing in.
Nagelsmann waiting in the wings
Julian Nagelsmann has been without a club since Germany's World Cup exit — knocked out on penalties by Paraguay in the round of 32, which was as bad as it sounds for a nation that hosted a successful European Championship just two years prior. The 39-year-old has been linked with a return to RB Leipzig as a replacement for Martin Demichelis, but Red Bull's global soccer head Roger Schmidt shut that down. Leipzig then beat Eintracht Frankfurt 6-0 and bought Demichelis some breathing room anyway.
So Nagelsmann is available. And Old Trafford, according to The Telegraph, is now a genuine possibility.
It wouldn't come out of nowhere. He was already linked with the Premier League after his surprising exit from Bayern Munich in March 2023. His CV — Hoffenheim, Leipzig, Bayern — shows he can handle a squad with deep expectations. Whether he can handle one this structurally broken is a different question entirely.
A club still searching for identity
Eight permanent managers since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. Eight. Louis van Gaal, José Mourinho, Ralf Rangnick — big names, all moved on. Carrick would be the next in a line that shows no sign of ending.
Bruno Fernandes publicly criticising tactics after a European game tells you the dressing room temperature. Fabregas, to his credit, admitted he told Douvikas to stop running at 4-0 — and still got the goal. "I take it to heart," the Como coach said. Carrick, meanwhile, kept it brief: "Tonight was a difficult night for everyone."
Sunday brings Bournemouth. If United's next manager odds weren't already shortening on Nagelsmann before this week, they certainly are now.
