Man United set to sack Carrick at Monaco board meeting as Pochettino emerges as frontrunner

Manchester United are set to sack Michael Carrick at a board meeting in Monaco on Tuesday, with the club sitting 18th in the Premier League and senior figures having lost confidence in the head coach’s ability to turn the season around.

Chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox will formally present their recommendation that Carrick be relieved of his duties at a meeting led by Sir Jim Ratcliffe. The pair were both in the stands at Old Trafford on Sunday to watch United draw 4-4 with Aston Villa, and sources have told the Manchester Evening News that they have since concluded Carrick is not the right man to rescue the club’s campaign.

Carrick, who arrived at Carrington for work on Tuesday morning after a day off following the Villa draw, made clear in a post-match interview that he had no intention of resigning. That decision now appears set to be taken out of his hands, two days into the November international break.

The head coach’s two-year contract, signed before the end of last season, reportedly contains an exit clause that would limit the club’s financial exposure to the remainder of the current campaign.

Mauricio Pochettino has emerged as the frontrunner to succeed Carrick. The Argentine has previous experience of rescuing a struggling side mid-season, having taken charge of Southampton in January 2013 when they sat just three points above the relegation zone. Southampton never re-entered the bottom three under Pochettino, eventually finishing 14th in their first season back in the top flight — five points clear of the drop.

Pochettino has spoken openly about his admiration for United, and recalled a notable encounter with Sir Alex Ferguson that followed a strong Southampton performance against the club in Ferguson’s final season as manager.

“In his final season as a manager, we played a great game against United with Southampton,” Pochettino told FourFourTwo. “At the press conference afterward, he said we’d been the most complete opponent United had faced. Through the secretary of the League Managers Association, he asked for my phone number so that we could have lunch. It was a meeting in London between colleagues — between a genius and an apprentice.”

Pochettino added that United had shown interest in him before, though the timing had never aligned. “United have always shown interest, but the ideal scenario to manage there has never quite materialised,” he said.