On Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, Manchester United F.C. fired Ruben Amorim, its tenth manager in the last thirteen years. This marks another unstable period for United, as the team will be coached through its next few games by the under-18-team coach, Darren Fletcher, as they search for a new manager.
At the beginning of his career, Portuguese international Ruben Amorim was immediately suspended for being out of the dugout and on the sideline without proper Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) qualifications, while at a third-tier Portuguese team. After coming back, he showed his coaching style of detailed plays along with a formation including three center backs and wing backs on either side that move up and down. Later, Amorim coached one of the Portuguese league’s giants, Sporting CP, based in Lisbon. With him, Sporting won two Portuguese league titles, its first in a few years, proving Amorim’s worth as a coach and gaining Amorim a lot of publicity.
Manchester United has been historically a great club, with legends like Wayne Rooney, David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo earning trophies. It’s also known for its rowdy and volatile fans. However, after 2013, United has only won the Football Association (FA) Cup, League Cup and the Europa League once (the Europa League is one step below the Champions League). To contrast this, between the years 2000 and 2013, United won the Premier League eight times, the League Cup twice and the Champions League once. After that period, though, the team went through coach after coach, growing frustrated with fewer trophies and lower and lower placements in the Premier League. In the 2024-25 season, United placed 15th, a new low, and only three places away from getting relegated to the Championship League.
Amorim’s time with United was mediocre at best, winning 24 of his 63 games (just over 30%) in his 14 months there. After United drew with Leeds in the Premier League on Sunday, January 4, Amorim said to the press, “I will do my job, and every department, the scouting department, the sporting director, needs to do their job.” The thin ice, which he was treading on due to his record, began to shift after this, and he was promptly sacked two days later.
So, what’s next? United interviewed new candidates for the coaching jobs, including former players like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Michael Carrick and Ruud van Nistelrooy. It became a close race between Solskjaer or Carrick to be the new manager. Solskjaer would have been a good fit for United, having previously coached its reserve team, along with Cardiff city and a Norwegian side called Molde. Then United released the news that they would pick Michael Carrick to be their manager till the end of the season. A former player who made over 400 appearances for United between 2006 and 2018, Carrick certainly knows Manchester United. He has also coached United before and has coached a championship (English second highest league) side called Middlesbrough. As a coach, he likes to play a 4-2-3-1 formation, which works quite well defensively with two defensive midfielders and when the outside midfielders move up like wingers.
Many Fieldston students have been following this coaching change: “A lot of good players come out of United’s academy, but they don’t stay there. It has to be the coach,” said avid soccer player and fan Gaberial Opler (III). “They need to figure out how to use their good players, and they clearly have lots of potential.” While what’s next for the historically-but-not-recently-great club isn’t clear, there is no doubt that Manchester United will figure it out.
