October 27, 2026
Manchester United continues its intense preparations for the upcoming confrontation with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge this week, amid complete focus from the players and technical staff, led by Michael Carrick, on achieving a strong response, following the team’s harsh 3-0 loss to Bournemouth.
In this context, Carrick arrived at the Carrington training center on Tuesday morning to supervise the training session, after the players rested on Monday, in preparation for the match that begins this afternoon at Stamford Bridge.
At the level of technical management, informed sources within the club indicate that decision-makers at Manchester United did not show complete confidence in the coaching names currently available on the market, which include Antonio Conte, Eddie Howe, and Julian Nagelsmann, as one of the sources was quoted as saying: “The best coaches will not come.”
The club did not make any official offer to contract with Conte, while Howe contented himself with conducting preliminary investigations and evaluations in anticipation of receiving an official offer, while Christopher Fievel, director of contracts at United, linked previous knowledge of Nagelsmann during their work with the “R Paul” group.
On the other hand, Fabian Horzler was practically excluded from the club’s accounts due to the exorbitant financial compensation requested by Brighton to abandon the services of the German coach. Likewise, Unai Emery, the coach of Aston Villa, is admired by some officials, but his contract extending until 2029 and its high financial cost hinders the negotiating ability, in addition to Emery’s adherence to the powers of the “technical director”, at a time when United insists on the “head coach” model adopted since the entry of Sir Jim Ratcliffe as a partner in ownership of the club in February 2024.
This administrative controversy comes as an extension of previous tensions, after the director of football, Jason Wilcox, likening himself to the role of “technical director” last season angered former coach Ruben Amorim, which contributed to his sudden dismissal last January.
It is noteworthy that Manchester United incurred 10 million euros (about 8.4 million pounds sterling) to terminate Amorim’s contract with Sporting Lisbon in October 2024. For comparison, the cost of signing Erik Ten Hag from Ajax in 2022 was about 2.5 million pounds sterling, while his Norwegian counterpart received 500 thousand pounds sterling in exchange for letting go of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in March 2019, while the club did not pay any financial compensation when hiring him. David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Michael Carrick.
