There comes a point when you have to stop blaming the manager.
Michael Carrick can pick the wrong midfield. He can make a bad substitution. He can lose at Hull and deserve every rotten tomato thrown his way.
But he cannot fix Manchester United’s balance sheet.
And increasingly, that is the real opponent.
United remain one of the biggest commercial machines in world football, yet operate like a rich man whose credit cards are maxed out. As of March, the club had £60.9 million of cash and £260 million drawn on its revolving credit facility, on top of roughly £470 million of long term borrowings. Debt interest alone cost another £20 million through the first nine months of the financial year.
This is Manchester United.
They should be kicking doors down in the transfer market.
Instead they are checking the bank balance before ordering dessert.
That is the Glazer legacy. They bought the club with debt, put that debt onto the club, and nearly 21 years later Manchester United are still carrying the carcass around. The original takeover loaded roughly £660 million onto United. More than £1 billion has reportedly disappeared into debt interest since.
INEOS were supposed to change the story.
Instead, they changed the narrator.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe arrived promising football people making football decisions. There have been cuts, restructurings, new executives, Carrington investment and enough corporate surgery to make an investment banker blush.
But the patient still has the same disease.
INEOS owns roughly 29 percent of the club. The Glazer family still controls nearly 68 percent of the voting power.
That matters.
INEOS did not remove the Glazers. They bought them time.
They gave supporters something new to believe in without changing the fundamental economic structure underneath Manchester United. The debt remains. The interest remains. The financing constraints remain. Every summer becomes an exercise in selling before buying, amortization, PSR headroom, wages and clever accounting.
Meanwhile Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool behave like clubs trying to win the league.
United behave like a restructuring case.
And that is why Carrick feels almost secondary to the bigger question.
Maybe he succeeds. Maybe he squeezes enough from this squad to keep United in the Champions League. Maybe Baleba becomes a monster, Bruno keeps producing miracles and Carrick proves himself worthy of the job.
But every United manager is eventually asked to outrun the ownership.
Mourinho could not.
Solskjaer could not.
Ten Hag could not.
Amorim could not.
Carrick should not have to.
The next true rebuild will not begin with another manager or another £70 million midfielder.
It begins with a sale.
United need an owner capable of clearing the debt, rebuilding Old Trafford without mortgaging the future, properly capitalizing the football operation and then hiring serious operators to run it.
No celebrity executives. No vanity appointments. No learning on the job.
Competent adults, money, patience and accountability.
Until then, supporters are stuck watching the same movie with different actors.
The Glazers own Manchester United.
INEOS run the football side.
The debt runs everything.
And until somebody finally buys the club and breaks that cycle, every rebuild is just another coat of paint on a house with rotten foundations.
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