Eddie Howe is a better manager than Manchester United deserve right now, and that's exactly why hiring him would solve nothing.
As of Monday afternoon, Michael Carrick hadn't been sacked, and Howe hadn't been appointed. Carrick was even pictured driving into Carrington to watch his United U21s. But the signs all point the same way: Omar Berrada, the chief executive, and Jason Wilcox, the director of football, were at Carrington making a decision, and Howe is understood to be Wilcox's preferred candidate. Julian Nagelsmann is the clear second name. Antonio Conte, Unai Emery and Fabian Hurzeler hover in the background. Pick whichever one you fancy. The same people are choosing, and the same people are the problem.
Nobody at the top wants to say this part out loud. Carrick signed a permanent deal through 2028 in May, after getting United into the Champions League. Sacking him now, after he's won just two of his 12 games in all competitions this season, is a brutally fast reversal. United have gone eight games without a win, sit 16th in the Premier League, a point above the relegation zone, out of the Carabao Cup and already beaten twice in three Champions League matches. The failure belongs to a squad assembled by committee across a run of managers in under four years, and to a boardroom that keeps treating the dugout as the release valve for a mess it built everywhere else.
Howe's record is real. Nearly five years at Newcastle, two Champions League qualifications, and a Carabao Cup in 2025 that ended a trophy drought stretching back seven decades. That's a serious CV, but it's an incomplete one for this job. His final season ended 12th, and he walked away in July saying he needed to recharge after a draining spell. Howe is a manager who needs time and a board that actually backs him. United haven't offered anyone those two things since Ferguson left.
Alan Shearer put the fit question better than any of the panic merchants: "Eddie Howe has also been linked, he wants control of things, and in a club that he sees that is his role and his issue. Whether he would get that at Manchester United or not, I don't know." United are already haggling over his contract, with Howe wanting a clean deal and the club wanting clauses tied to the Champions League. They'd also owe Newcastle up to £6m in compensation just to get him through the door. A club negotiating control and incentives with a manager before he's coached a single session is already showing you the shape of that relationship.
The pitch for Howe is that his pedigree makes him the safe bet next to someone like Conte or Nagelsmann. Safe for whom? Chelsea reached for the proven name after sacking Graham Potter, handed the job to Mauricio Pochettino, and a season later sat in the same league position with barely any improvement. Drop a good manager into a broken structure and you get the same table with a new face in the dugout.
Berrada and Wilcox own this, and above them so does the ownership axis that keeps firing the only person on the premises who can't restructure a recruitment department or buy a defence. Carrick didn't fail alone. Howe won't fix this alone either. They're about to spend millions appointing a manager they'll set up to fail.
Howe might be the right coach. The appointment will go wrong anyway, because the people making it have never once proven they know how to make the right one.
