The Interim Manager’s Curse: Why Does The Strange Scenario Keep Repeating At Manchester United?

There is something oddly familiar about Manchester United’s relationship with interim managers.

A coach arrives when the club is in trouble. The atmosphere changes. Players who looked short of confidence suddenly appear liberated. Results improve, the football becomes more convincing and, before long, the temporary solution begins to look like the answer to a much bigger problem.

Then comes the announcement: the caretaker gets the permanent job.

That is often when the story changes.

Michael Carrick is the latest Manchester United manager to find himself caught in this peculiar cycle. And, perhaps more intriguingly, he is now experiencing both sides of it within the same year.

When Ruben Amorim left United in January 2026, the club was sixth in the Premier League and had already been eliminated from both domestic cups. Carrick was initially appointed until the end of the season. What followed was considerably better than anyone at Old Trafford could reasonably have expected. He won 11 and drew three of his first 16 matches, beating Manchester City and Arsenal in successive games and securing victories against Aston Villa and Liverpool. United climbed back into the Champions League places and finished third.

Carrick had done enough to turn a caretaker appointment into a permanent one.

In May, United handed him a contract until 2028.

The logic was straightforward. The players appeared to respond to him, the results were strong and, crucially, there was a sense that he had restored something inside the dressing room. Jason Wilcox, United’s director of football, said Carrick had built a strong bond with the players and helped create a winning culture.

But then the permanent job began.

Five Premier League matches into the 2026-27 season, United had five points. They had lost at newly promoted Hull, beaten Ipswich, drawn at Everton, lost the Manchester derby and drawn 1-1 at Fulham. In between came a 4-0 Champions League victory over Sabah, but also a painful Carabao Cup exit against Brighton, when United surrendered a two-goal lead to lose 3-2 at Old Trafford.

Suddenly, the language surrounding Carrick had changed.

This is where the idea of an “interim manager’s curse” becomes irresistible.

The most obvious comparison is Ole Gunnar Solskjær.

When José Mourinho was dismissed in December 2018, Solskjær arrived as caretaker and immediately transformed the mood. United won his first eight matches in all competitions and he eventually recorded 14 victories in his first 19 games. The revival was so dramatic that the club made the Norwegian permanent in March 2019.

The problem was that the spectacular run had created expectations that were almost impossible to sustain.

After his appointment was confirmed, United’s form dropped. The team finished sixth that season, and the momentum of the caretaker period disappeared. That does not prove that giving Solskjær the permanent job caused the decline; football rarely allows such a simple cause-and-effect explanation. But the contrast was striking enough to become part of United’s modern managerial folklore.

Carrick himself has already lived through another version of the phenomenon.

After Solskjær was dismissed in November 2021, Carrick took temporary charge for three matches, winning against Villarreal and Arsenal before drawing with Chelsea. He was then replaced by Ralf Rangnick.

And now, five years later, he has returned to the same seat.

The danger of confusing a rescue act with a rebuild

But is there really a curse?

Probably not in the literal sense.

Manchester United’s recurring problem may not be that interim managers inevitably fail when made permanent.

It may be that the club repeatedly mistakes short-term stabilisation for evidence of long-term suitability.

Those are not necessarily the same thing.

A caretaker manager can be excellent at restoring confidence without necessarily being the right person to rebuild a squad. He can understand the dressing room without having the recruitment vision required for a four-year project.

He can produce an immediate tactical improvement without having solved the structural problems that caused the previous manager’s downfall.

Solskjær’s caretaker run was extraordinary. Carrick’s was excellent. Van Nistelrooy’s brief spell after Erik ten Hag’s dismissal in 2024 was also positive, he won three and drew one of his four matches before Ruben Amorim arrived.

But Van Nistelrooy was never given the permanent job.

That comparison is revealing because it shows the issue is not simply “United always appoint the interim”. The bigger question is what the club learns from the interim period.

Carrick now has to demonstrate that his first five months were more than a well-timed emotional and tactical reset.

He has already shown he can change the mood at Old Trafford. He has shown he can win important matches. He has shown that players will respond to him.

The next challenge is considerably harder, can he build something that survives adversity?

Every successful manager eventually encounters the period when the easy answers disappear.

An injury crisis arrives. A new signing struggles. A tactical adjustment stops working. The opposition adapts. A player loses form. Supporters become impatient.

That is when a manager’s real project begins.

United’s history since Sir Alex Ferguson has repeatedly demonstrated how quickly the atmosphere can swing. The caretaker can become the saviour; the saviour can become the problem; and the problem can then create the conditions for another caretaker.

Perhaps, then, the curse is not that interim managers become worse once they receive permanent contracts.

Perhaps the curse is Manchester United’s tendency to believe that a temporary revival has already answered a permanent question.

Carrick has been given the opportunity to disprove that theory.

The early weeks of his permanent reign have certainly made the question relevant again. But they have not answered it.

And that may be the most important distinction of all: at Manchester United, a caretaker’s job is to stop the bleeding.

A permanent manager has to explain why the wound will not reopen.

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