There was, of course, another Premier League sacking today.

Sage has been walking a tightrope since the 5-0 thrashing at Brighton last month when it was made clear to the 47-year-old that he must tighten a defence that had conceded the most goals in the Premier League. Some players are thought to have questioned his training methods, although Dean Henderson, the captain, was among those believed to have pledged their support for Sage after defeats by Newcastle and Tottenham.

David Flynn gets in touch: "Hi John, I must say I don't fully agree that United keep appointing yesterday's men, they've also tried appointing tomorrow's men (Amorin, Ten Haag) and nobody's men (Carrick, Ole). It's actually a broad spectrum of mistakes that they keep making."

Fair point, well made.

Ben Monroe-Lake gets in touch: "We live in an age of incredibly powerful individuals, people who wield vast amounts of money and influence and increasingly make little attempt to hide how readily they are to fling such influence and money around for their own benefit. Trump, Musk, Huang, Zuckerberg etc.

"And yet at the same time, these people seem entirely unable to not show everyone their arse, on ever more impressive stages, in ever more shocking ways. So the mind trust at Manchester United are a particularly great microcosm of this. Men of a particular age, who voluntarily took up this position, wrested control of the football operations in fact, as they thought they could do it better. Yet it's obvious how bad they are at this, even without seeing inside their Monaco based boardrooms.

"Extend Ten Hag's contract based on the performance in one game. Force in a young manager with a rigid tactical plan without the players to support it. Fire the person you paid Newcastle Utd a huge fee to hire, because he points out this is stupid. Keep on the interim manager with little experience and don't fill the most gaping holes in his squad.

"In between this, fire the tea ladies, make some questionable pronouncements and who can even remember all the gaffes.

"Of course it's slightly terrifying that people who are essentially "in charge" are so stupid but it's a little bit mollifying that people that seem happy to wade waist deep into all aspects of our lives are as dumb as I am. All that really separates me from them is luck and being more willing to get up at five in the morning. So perhaps one day someone not a total bozo will make enough money to buy a football club."

David Wall gets in touch: "One thing that concerns me about Pochettino is how he will engage with the academy. There was a lot made when he was at Spurs about how he favoured young players. But in fact most of those young players were bought in from outside of the club. It was only Kane from their academy who became a regular in the first team (perhaps with Winks, although more as a squad player rather than first choice). Is Pochettino the type of manager who will spend his midweek evenings going to watch the youth sides play, or is he just going to give an instruction about age-profile to the recruitment department?"

Winks started the 2019 Champions League final, as did Kane, rather unfortunately. At Chelsea, there was definite friction with the club hierarchy, though the signs at United are that he could have the personality to create his own powerbase. Within United, there is a great big vacuum that someone needs to fill.

The problem with Pochettino is that he's very much the face of 2015 rather than 2026, setting aside what was a decent enough USMNT World Cup until it all went wrong. United keep doing this. Louis van Gaal would have been a fine appointment in 1996 rather than 2015, and Jose Mourinho would have been ideal in 2003, rather than 2016. Of course, United had a good manager in those days but times move on.

Joe Taylor gets in touch: "Spurs fan here. I'm a bit confused by the Pochettino-Spurs revisionism. Sometimes managers don't get credit for taking players that until that point hasn't achieved anything and turning them into world beaters (eg. Eriksen, Son) but in this case he doesn't even get credit for players that didn't do anything before or after his tenure (eg. Dier, Dele Alli, Dembele, Lamela). I'd suggest he had quite a large hand in that squad that supposedly made his life easy. I think he's perfect for United right now."

I'd agree. He made the most of what he had, and a player of a couple of players who have achieved very little without his help. There's a few projects to work on at United.

Warning: Poch may not be an instant cure for the Manchester United malaise.

At Chelsea, just one win from his first six league games, same at Southampton and Espanyol, while at Tottenham he won two and drew two. At PSG, he won four of his first six games, which at that club is probably below par.

The Manchester United Supporters' Trust (MUST) earlier issued a statement following Carrick's dismissal pinning the blame for poor results firmly on the ownership. In full below:

Michael Carrick's departure marks another depressing moment for Manchester United. We thank him for his service and for restoring hope during the second half of last season. His standing among supporters remains undiminished.

The reason Manchester United fans have continued to support Michael Carrick in recent weeks is that they know that responsibility for United's problems do not primarily rest with him or indeed his predecessors as manager.

They lie with the ownership.

The Glazers' debt-funded takeover continues to burden the club. When INEOS came in they promised sporting excellence, but yet with repeated changes in football leadership we have seen anything but.

It is time for the owners to explain themselves and show some accountability.

But the discontent at United is not just about matters on the pitch. Far from it.

Aggressive ticketing policies have further damaged relations with supporters. Treating loyal fans principally as a source of revenue undermines their identity and the bond with the team that sustains support through difficult times. Supporters are being asked to pay the price for the owners' mismanagement as well as their stadium ambitions through higher charges and diminished rights.

The earlier Stretford End banner declaring "The way you treat us is a disgrace" was a warning. The unprecedented scale of the booing at Old Trafford, alongside public criticism from senior players in recent weeks, now points to a deeper deterioration. These are signs of a club becoming more divided, with the bond between supporters, players and those running Manchester United under increasing strain.

MUST warned publicly in January 2025 that alienating supporters risked a downward spiral of worsening atmosphere, performances and financial outcomes. Our subsequent Telegraph article urged Sir Jim Ratcliffe to break that "doom loop" by bringing supporters with him. Those warnings remain painfully relevant.

The owners must allow senior club management to change direction: show accountability, rebuild trust, listen to supporters and recognise that their loyalty is fundamental to football success. Another change of head coach cannot repair what the ownership continues to undermine.

The pattern is repeated, the problems remain the same. Wrote this a couple of weeks ago.

Beyond Busby and Ferguson, each United manager who also served felt the lash of desperation of a falling giant. Each of their defenestrations has featured an infighting that would not have been out of place in ancient Rome. Favouritism, nepotism, self-interest, entitlement, complacency and sentimentality have been the betrayal of a legend, to use the title of Michael Crick's and David Smith's "" book from 1989. Living with the legend and influence of those two managers leads the list of difficulties.

United fans know such history too well. "You lousy bastards, you let him down," Brian Kidd told teammates when the bullet came for Wilf McGuinness, Busby's immediate successor, in December 1970. Busby himself had done the deed. A December 1972 meeting at Selhurst Park with Tommy Docherty as Crystal Palace beat United 5-0 hastened the end for Frank O'Farrell.

Good afternoon, well here we are again.

And with that I shall hand over to for the afternoon session.

An email! "I'm a lifelong Spurs fan and enjoyed having Poch as manager," writes Alan. "But he did have a squad that made his life pretty easy. By the start of his second season, 2015-16, he could field this side: Lloris; Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose; Eriksen, Dier, Dembele; Dele Alli, Kane, Son. Not sure how many of the current United squad would get into that team. Sadly most of them would also get into the current Spurs team!"

The timing of Pochettino's expected arrival will be interesting. The US men's side have a Concacaf Nations League game against Haiti in Kingston, Jamaica, on Saturday, with the return leg next Wednesday in Cincinnati. Manchester United travel to Anfield in the Premier League four days later.

The nitty gritty of that is surely forming part of the conversations ongoing now. Either way, US Soccer will be quids-in as Jeff Rueter explains here.

The real boon is his release clause, a reported $10m (£7.5m) option that only a Big Club could afford to spring. Had Pochettino left after the World Cup, coach and federation would have parted with nothing more exchanged than a handshake and some pleasantries. Instead, they forged an insurance policy to make up for what could have been if Pochettino had stayed for a full cycle.

A few comments from below the line on our news story.

Impossible job and yet he still finished third.
This is the weakest squad Utd have had in 40 years. That's not Michael's fault.
He can walk either his head held high.
The fish rots from the head and it's spread right thru the Utd body.
Michael got caught up in it, bloody useless players in the main.

Pochettino flatters to decieve, won nothing at Tottenham, PSG are better under Luis Enrique and USA much of a muchness, it'll be another round of we made mistakes yet again at United inside 18 months. And Carrick was treated appallingly by the hierarchy, Relegation would be just desserts.

Thank you Michael. Your conduct was exemplary.
Once it became known that WIlcox leads a review, it was clear he would recommend Ratcliffe to fire Carrick. Otherwise he would be to blamed himself. How come the club that was 3rd last year is 3rd from bottom this year, with the same coach? The obvious answer is that recruitment failed. Wilcox can't have that, so better blame coach.
I think one of the problems of United and hierarchy is that they are opportunistic in their managerial appointments. Not only they don't have a long-term strategy, they don't even have a short-term strategy and fire coaches when other options they identify previously become available. They fired van Gaal because they contacted Mourinho, they pursued Amorim, now they fire Carrick when they are able to get a deal with Pochettino.

Do yourself a favour and read Barney Ronay's piece on Poch's imminent arrival. These lines feel particularly apt:

How do you solve a club that has won two major trophies in 10 years of steady downward progress? Easy. You hire a coach who has also won two major trophies in 13 years of steady downward progress. How do we get back to the dimly remembered recent past? We hire the dimly remembered recent past.

Does this feel like a magic bullet? At this stage hiring Pochettino is like booking the bloke who did Gangnam Style to play the Super Bowl. Yeah, huge fan. Remind me. Weren't you quite big in 2013?

What next for Michael Carrick is also an interesting question. Has he done enough to put himself in contention for the next Premier League vacancy that comes up? Or is it back to the Championship, where his tenure with Middlesbrough was mixed to say the least? With Regis Le Bris and Matthias Jaissle probably looking the least secure in the top flight at the moment, might a return to the north east be on the cards at some point for the Wallsend-born man? Doesn't quite right, does it? But you never know.

Hello all. Perhaps the most immediate problem facing Mauricio Pochettino when he arrives will be playing personnel. It's painfully obvious – and is has been for years – that where once Manchester United was home for the best of the best, these days it's … not. Everyone has their own view on players but when you look at the teamsheets for the key recent games against Aston Villa, Chelsea and, yes, Bournemouth you'd be hard-pressed to suggest that United had a truly superior 20-man matchday squad for those games. And Pochettino isn't going to be able to fix that overnight.

is here to take the blogging reins.

You have to credit Manchester United. Your local rivals have turned the Premier League into an almost meaningless farce. We are questioning the validity of anything we've seen over the past 20 years; wondering how many goals Erling Haaland will get in the Championship. We are looking at the league table from second position down and wishing we'd invested in inflatable bananas a month ago.

And yet here comes the Old Trafford machine: from players to the captain to the manager to the director of football, to the director of the director of football, to a minority owner who feels the UK is being "colonised by immigrants", to debt-leveraging majority owners who take vast sums out of the club and are collectively saying hold my Ineos-sponsored high-performance wellness immune boost smoothie.

Yes, it's time to dust down the Manchester United bin-fire article. Read this and compare and contrast. From 11 August 2022: "Reds rinse and repeat: will we ever break the Manchester United crisis cycle?" There are others.

"Yes, it's time to dust down the Manchester United bin-fire article," as Max Rushden wrote recently. Another piece that's well worth revisiting …

Here's a data graphic on how Manchester United, under Carrick, went from good last season to bad this season.

"Michael Carrick has been at the helm during the Red Devils' first dip into the relegation zone since 1986 yet somehow is also definitely not at fault. There is almost total agreement on the latter point, that United's issues are structural and systemic and absolve Carrick of blame. Still, he's gotta go, because what can you do, eh?"

" who built something at Tottenham despite the environment," Daniel writes of the Argentinian in that piece below "… the sense is that, as when Mourinho arrived at Old Trafford after years of speculation, he's past his magical best."

In January 2014 the 13th series of Celebrity Big Brother aired in the UK, the show so popular that its run time was extended by five days before a public vote anointed Jim Davidson the winner. Then, two years later when Brexit happened, people wondered where their tolerant country had gone, lamenting the ephemeral spirit of London 2012 as though the 2011 riots were some kind of fever dream, not a desperate response to decades of structural and institutional racism exacerbated by the cruelty of unnecessary austerity.

The truth is that if security is quickly upended, it was built on quicksand to begin with. Which brings us to Manchester United, easing effortlessly from an uplifting third-place finish to some of the worst football in their history.

It is entirely possible that Alex Ferguson made a deal with the devil to the effect that United would be great until he retired and hilariously dreadful thereafter. But assuming not, his mentality was busy setting up the post-him fall even at the height of the success – itself a consequence of what had gone before.

has been sacked as Crystal Palace's manager after 16 games. The Frenchman, appointed in mid-June to replace Oliver Glasner, has gone after Sunday's 3-1 defeat by Liverpool left his team bottom of the Premier League.

Thomas Frank, out of work since his dismissal by Spurs in February, has emerged as the main candidate to succeed Sage. He spoke to Palace in the summer and is said to be keen for a new challenge after a successful spell at Brentford.

"Sadness it's come to this … more sadness because it's Michael," Gary Neville tells Sky Sports News. "I wish he hadn't got the job at the end of the season … I didn't expect it to happen this quickly, but it is what it is … the position in the league is terrible [but] the club is spinning on a roundabout again.

"It's a really poor reflection on the decision-makers. To get the ending right [with a manager] is very difficult … it can be clumsy … I think I said after the Bournemouth game, Manchester United effectively watched Carrick resign on the pitch, that wave goodbye.

"Indecision … lack of authority … poor leadership [from the club hierarchy] … in the last 24, 48 hours, it's been spectacularly bad … to be in Monaco while your manager is taking training, while also approaching Mauricio Pochettino …

"Quite simply disgusting … in any other industry, it would be constructive dismissal, and you'd be getting sued … I don't think anybody comes out of this well at all.

"[European] Super League was the ultimate low, a betrayal of the English game … I think this is a low, but you don't even get angry anymore … you just feel, like, nothing … it makes you numb, I think the fans are sick of it, I think everyone is sick of it."

"I have been a supporter for 60 years," emails Graham. "I hope we get relegated, lose lots of money and get rid of the owners. Only in this way will we ever get back to being a club that supporters are truly connected with and are proud of."

"Here we see the recurring problem at United: a new gun is hired and is bequeathed a sorry mess that is impossible to clean up because there is no true will to eradicate it. Why? Because the only real reset of culture would be for Ratcliffe, who owns 29.4%, Wilcox, Berrada and the Glazer family, whose ownership since 2005 has left the club about £1.2bn in debt, to accept they are the problem and depart."

Coming up next: must-read analysis on Carrick's departure from Jamie Jackson.

"In my 53 years supporting United this is most depressing time. Worse, even, than the pre-Fergie years," emails Robert.

"The club is completely broken. The owners don't really care about anything other than money. It's a matter of public record that they seeing winning as a nice to have, not the core objective of an elite football club.

"Pretty much every club in Premier League is run and managed better than United. And this is why the decline of the club that started with the Glazers taking ownership is now reaching its terminal point.

"I feel deep sympathy for Carrick. His lack of experience was clear when appointed as interim. He did a great job and they rushed to appoint him permanently. And it was predictable that the financial constraints of the club would mean he would fail, and fail quickly.

"Our first-team squad is completely below average quality and Carrick was completely undermined before the season started by an appallingly negligent transfer window. Every supporter knew where our problems would be and every one of us has been proved right. Why couldn't Wilcox, Berrada et al see the same as us?

"It really doesn't matter who the manager is. With this squad and these owners the cycle will just continue. Relegation might be what we need."

"Are we a bit late to the party with Pochettino?" wonders Paul Scholes on The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast.

"I actually think he's a brilliant appointment ... he could be perfect ... but I've got that slight concern we are not getting his best years."

, rather than Michael Carrick, are to blame for the club's problems, a fans' group has said.

"Michael Carrick's departure marks another depressing moment for Manchester United," said a statement from the Manchester United Supporters' Trust (MUST).

"We thank him for his service and for restoring hope during the second half of last season. His standing among supporters remains undiminished.

"The reason Manchester United fans have continued to support Michael Carrick in recent weeks is that they know that responsibility for United's problems do not primarily rest with him or indeed his predecessors as manager.

"They lie with the ownership. The Glazers' debt-funded takeover continues to burden the club. When Ineos came in they promised sporting excellence, but yet with repeated changes in football leadership we have seen anything but.

"It is time for the owners to explain themselves and show some accountability."

"I disagree with the earlier comment that Carrick is not to blame in some way," emails Ryan.

"He presided over apparently a poor pre-season program as the players look unfit v other sides in the league, he continues to play Dalot at left-back rather than use someone from the academy, and his tactics overall have been muddled. Of course the board bear a lot of the blame, because the signings weren't delivered, but he has made the situation worse."

After Nottingham Forest 3-1 Manchester City, meanwhile, will Pochettino be appointing a second-ball coach?

Personally I don't think it would be a bad idea:

As Mauricio Pochettino left the podium to close his final press conference of the last international window, he offered an ambiguous farewell.

"See you next …" Pochettino began as he headed to the tunnels of Allianz Field in Saint Paul, before cutting his sentence short. Then, a bit of a sing-song: "See you next, see you next."

You don't need an AI clanker's autocomplete function to try closing the sentence. "See you next month" would have been synonymous with "see you next window", after all. Still, the farewell felt poignant given questions about whether Pochettino was going to last a full four-year cycle as US men's national team head coach.

exclusively revealed on Monday night that Manchester United were about to press the "Sack Carrick" button:

"Is Pochettino actually a good manager?" ponders Jon on email.

"He did well at Spurs - albeit without winning anything - and in a short spell at Southampton but that was a long time ago. Since then his record has been pretty underwhelming, up to and including an uninspiring time in charge of the US men's team. He just seems to have a reputation as a good manager but I'm not really sure what it's based on anymore."

"And so here we are again, at that point as the nights draw in and Manchester United prepare to sack a manager. Autumn: season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and a crisis at Old Trafford. Sunday's 3-0 home defeat to Bournemouth, coming on the back of last week's 4-1 reverse against Como, made clear what many had feared from the moment Michael Carrick was given the job on a permanent basis: that he isn't up to it.

"But then, who could be? When you've burned through a long list of managers in 13 years, it's perhaps worth considering whether the manager is really the problem. Could some blame perhaps go to the director of football, Jason Wilcox, or the chief executive, Omar Berrada, the people making the appointments? Or perhaps to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the cost-cutting tax exile and minority shareholder with responsibility for sporting operations? Or to the Glazer family, who plunged the club into debt with a leveraged buyout in 2005 and have since made calamitous decision after calamitous decision, reducing the most successful club in English league history to a mid-table laughing stock with a roof that leaks symbolically?"

"This feels sadder than every other time it's happened since Ferguson retired," emails John. "Each of the previous managers had to go, as in large part the underperformance very much felt like it was their fault. This doesn't feel like that. It was so astoundingly obvious we needed another striker and left back in the summer, and we've suffered hugely (and immediately) because neither were brought in.

"Carrick has been left with a dire situation and whereas with the others (Amorim: change formation; ETH: play Casemiro; Moyes: stop crossing 80 times per game and so on and so on), as a fan I can't look at our performances and think of an obvious error. But, because the owners and exec aren't going to sack themselves, and because you can't fire the players, you change the only thing you can ... the manager. And then repeat the cycle all over again."

"Carrick isn't the story. Pochettino isn't the story. The Glazer family is the story. Manchester City has been ruined by corruption and Manchester United has been ruined by debt and mismanagement. The pressure for the owners to sell up needs to be taken up to a new level. That's it."

has called Manchester United "classless" over their actions in the days before Carrick's sacking.

The manager's departure was announced on Thursday and Mauricio Pochettino has been lined up to replace him.

Confirmation of Carrick's sacking came after a period of limbo for the former midfielder, who reported to Carrington on Thursday after taking training on Tuesday and Wednesday.

His fate was sealed the day after a meeting in Monaco, when director of football Jason Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada travelled to see co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

Speaking on the Overlap's Stick to Football podcast, recorded prior to Thursday's confirmation, Neville said the process feels "clumsy".

"We're sat here today recording this programme knowing that Michael Carrick is going to be sacked tomorrow, knowing that they're speaking to Mauricio Pochettino … But I think the fact they're in Monaco now and they can't sack him today knowing that it's happening, to me it just feels a little bit clumsy, it feels a little bit classless.

"I think if you live in Monaco, you can't leave a guy hanging for 24 or 48 hours just because you live in Monaco, that can't happen."

" should have fired themselves," emails Deb, a "long-suffering Mancunian."

"They are the common denominator of all this failure. Poch will last 12 months if he's lucky. What a shower …"

Pochettino's managerial career path:

2009-2012 Espanyol
2013-2014 Southampton
2014-2019 Tottenham
2021-2022 Paris Saint-Germain
2023-2024 Chelsea
2024-2026 USMNT

Welcome, Mauricio, to the meat grinder. Or rather, welcome back. We've been expecting you. There is nothing surprising in the news Manchester United may be on the verge of appointing Mauricio Pochettino. United are always on the verge of appointing Pochettino. This is a club that has spent 13 years hiring and firing the same structurally doomed manager – same shellshocked eyes, same irresolvable macro-problems – and the last eight years almost but not quite doing this to Pochettino.

Let's look to the future!

Manchester United's next fixture is the of a Premier League match against Liverpool at Anfield, Sunday 22 November: kick-off 4.30pm.

Then on Wednesday 25 November, it's a date with Sporting in Lisbon in the Champions League.

On Saturday, 28 November, it's a 3pm kick-off against Brentford in the Premier League.

Away you go, Mauricio.

"After going through the Moyes season," writes Hugh, "the dross football of Mourinho and Van Gaal, the moments-years of Solskjaer, the Rangnick surgery that never was, the middling Ten Hag, the baffling Amorim, and now a decent man thrust into the meat grinder, this is the first year it's been genuinely hard to watch Man Utd with any emotion.

"And it's not because of the football. It's that the Glazer ownership and Ratcliffe mismanagement has met the Man City revelations, meaning it's hard to see the point anymore. £1bn taken out of the club while others were illicitly pumping in roughly the same. A club drained of life, hollowed out … I can take crap football, but I can't take this anymore."

"I think it was Jonathan Liew who made the eminently sensible suggestion of a positional switch (not so rare in football) for Michael Carrick - by having him replace Jason Wilcox as director of football," emails Geoff.

"That would have made sense."

And Andrew chips in on email:

"Just waiting for Mr Mediocrity Wilcox to do the honorable thing and admit he is out of his depth and responsible in part for the situation and resign. The golf course and the pundit circuit call … Michael, you will always be welcomed back into the crowd by all United fans."

Clearly, there is sadness and regret within the club that Carrick has been dismissed. But the run of one win in 10 Premier League games was seen as unacceptable "by any measure" – and there is a belief that a different manager will get more from the squad. Performances and results in the last three games – the 2-0 defeat by Chelsea, a stirring 3-2 win against Roma and the 4-4 draw with Villa – were not enough to convince the club hierarchy that they were on the right path.

"As a United fan who was around for the early 90s and the many successes that followed, seeing Carrick go is a sad end to a horrible situation," emails Chris. "He was the only likeable thing about a club and set of players who I find it harder to support as I get older.

"I've lived and understood all the schadenfreude that goes with United failing over the last 13 years and I get it, but frankly I'm finding it hard to invest the emotional energy in the team any more. I took my eight-year-old lad to Old Trafford for the Brighton game in the FA Cup in January, and I've never experienced a more toxic atmosphere at a football ground.

"The fans - and I mean the locals, the ones who go to games, who can remember the days before Ronaldo - we deserve better ... better owners, better attitudes, better standards. Nothing will change with the setup of the club today and we are in this macabre holding pattern of failure, hope, anger and disappointment.

"It's harder and harder to find the hope that should accompany the appointment of a new manager but what other choice do we have?"

The former Burnley, QPR and Southampton goal machine Charlie Austin is in the pundit's chair on Sky Sports News right now. He says United have to clear the decks – let Mauricio Pochettino rebuild completely. Which is fair, although it's not like there will be unlimited funds.

"Allow him to work from the bottom up," Austin says of the incoming Argentinian gaffer.

"If they don't do that, we'll be in the same scenario in 18 months' time."

"Carrick is of course essentially another bystander to the ongoing reactor core meltdown. He didn't appoint Michael Carrick. He has done nothing surprising in his role as head coach, simply been the best Michael Carrick he can be, which is a Michael Carrick unqualified for this level of management."

Barney Ronay, there, writing a few days ago.

What do think about all this?

You can email me.

Here is the statement from the club now published on the official website:

"Manchester United can confirm that Michael Carrick has departed his role as men's first-team head coach.

"Michael rejoined the club in January and guided the team to a third-placed Premier League finish by winning 12 out of the remaining 17 games of the 2025/26 season, accumulating the highest points tally in the league during that period.

"After a disappointing start to the season, the club has come to the extremely difficult conclusion that a change is necessary in order to achieve our ambitions.

"Michael is, and always will be, a Manchester United legend. Just as he did as a player, he has conducted himself with the highest standards of dedication and professionalism throughout his time back with the club. His leadership and achievements last season will always be fondly remembered.

"The club intends to appoint a permanent successor as quickly as possible."

have sacked Michael Carrick as their head coach with the team in the Premier League's relegation zone and lined up Mauricio Pochettino to take over.

Pochettino has a framework agreement to join a club who have one win from their past 11 matches. The USA head coach, a Premier League manager with Southampton, Tottenham and Chelsea, has a release clause of about $10m (£7.5m). United will have to pay more to take his staff.

Michael Carrick has been dismissed by Manchester United. He departs after a 4-4 draw with Aston Villa at Old Trafford last Sunday that left the team in the Premier League's bottom three. United twice fought back from two goals down for a late point against Villa, after a dramatic recovery to defeat Roma in the Champions League five days earlier, but that wasn't enough.

United are third-bottom in the Premier League, a point behind 17th-placed Coventry, and 17th in the Champions League league phase table. His departure follows a review led by the director of football, Jason Wilcox, and a recommendation to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who controls sporting policy.

More as we get it.