An unmanageable club? Carrick the latest to suffer in Manchester United’s faded grandeur

Should any club fit the Great Man theory of history, it is Manchester United. In the past 100 years, only Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson have knocked the club into shape. A pair of 20th-century Scotsmen, born 15 miles apart in Bellshill and Govan respectively, found the key. Otherwise, United has been a managerial dustbin, Michael Carrick the latest likely lobbed on the pile.

Busby and Ferguson built the club around themselves, possessing the charisma to convince others that theirs was the path to follow. Carrick, an insider, a club man, is falling victim to the same isolation as his predecessors in failure. Bruno Fernandes and Lisandro Martínez going off-piste in TV interviews to depth charge Carrick were actually following club tradition. With glamour comes decadence, the faded grandeur that has so often chased a United manager out the door.