Manchester United's managerial merry-go-round surpasses £100m as Carrick exit adds £12m to the bill

Manchester United’s total expenditure on hiring and firing managers since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement has surpassed £100m, with the imminent dismissal of Michael Carrick and the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino set to add a further £12m to that staggering figure.

Carrick’s removal, along with compensation for his backroom staff, is expected to cost around £5m. Pochettino’s arrival — requiring United to buy him out of his contract as United States national team head coach — will add approximately £7.4m on top of that.

The latest outlay follows a turbulent period under Ineos, the ownership group led by Sir Jim Ratcliffe that took control in 2024. Since then, the club have sacked Erik ten Hag — despite him delivering an FA Cup triumph — paid to bring Ruben Amorim from Sporting Lisbon, and then dismissed the Portuguese coach as well. Those three moves alone cost just under £30m, with precious little silverware beyond that solitary cup to justify the expenditure.

Ineos’s early recruitment decisions have also proven costly off the pitch. The high-profile acquisition of sporting director Dan Ashworth from Newcastle, initially heralded as a significant coup, cost £3m to complete — only for Ashworth to depart within months at a further cost of £4.1m.

The roots of United’s managerial spending problem stretch back to Ferguson’s retirement in 2013. David Moyes was the first to be handed the poisoned chalice; his decision to release several Ferguson-era staff members, combined with his own sacking inside 12 months, generated a combined bill of £7.3m. Louis van Gaal followed and cost the club £8.4m when he was dismissed.

Jose Mourinho remains the single most expensive departure in United’s post-Ferguson era. When the Portuguese manager was axed in December 2018 after just over two years in charge, he and his staff were paid off to the tune of £19.6m, according to the Telegraph.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s exit in late 2021 cost more than £8m, while his short-term replacement Ralf Rangnick — brought in with the expectation of transitioning into a senior consultancy role — lasted less than a season at a cost of nearly £15m.

With Pochettino yet to take charge and United currently sitting in the relegation zone, the financial reckoning at Old Trafford shows no sign of slowing. The cumulative cost of managerial instability now represents one of the most damaging self-inflicted wounds in the club’s modern history.