After 26 years of the same man in the dugout, Manchester United have become just like everyone else with quick turnarounds for their managers.

The very high bar set by Sir Alex Ferguson has never been reached, or really come close to, but of the eight men to have managed United in the Premier League era, there are some obvious highs and some even more obvious lows.

Here’s our ranking of the eight permanent Manchester United managers since the Premier League began.

8. Ruben Amorim

It’s an obvious answer for the worst manager.

Amorim just never really seemed to get it. He was wedded to a 3-4-3 that he simply did not have the players for.

The Portuguese man is not alone in taking the blame. The INEOS hivemind knew what Amorim was about and also insisted he joined midseason rather than give him a full summer, but Amorim should have been more flexible.

He used up all of his goodwill with a 15th-place finish in his first season, United’s lowest in 51 years, and did not help himself by telling the world media thoughts he should perhaps have kept for his personal diary. Then there was Grimsby.

Summer spending of £200million did see an improvement the following year and he even changed to four at the back in December, but he signed his own death warrant when he criticised the club’s hierarchy.

He left Old Trafford with the worst win percentage of a permanent manager since Frank O’Farrell in 1972.

7. David Moyes

Moyes’ win ratio was not even that bad, but the job seemed to overwhelm him.

He reportedly told Rio Ferdinand to play like Phil Jagielka and his desire to sign two of his former players suggested he never really stepped up from being Everton manager.

The squad Ferguson left him was not exactly built for the future and he had a hapless chief executive in Ed Woodward trying to sign every player on the planet but early losses to Chelsea, Manchester City and West Brom corroded fans’ confidence.

United and their fans were likely always expecting a drop after Ferguson left but a loss to Spurs on New Year’s Day had the club in seventh and out of all European spots.

As for Europe, United were embarrassed away at Olympiacos and even if they recovered in the second leg, it simply delayed their execution as Bayern swept them aside 4-2 over the two legs.

The United board, to their credit, gave Moyes time but his tenure came to an end when qualification for the Champions League was mathematically impossible.

Perhaps most damning of all, Moyes initiated a collective lowering of expectations which United have never recovered from.

6. Michael Carrick

The jury is still out on Carrick.

He undeniably did well in his return to the Old Trafford dugout but it was a bit like playing FIFA on easy mode.

Amorim’s failure gave Carrick the gift of a clear calendar and putting square pegs in square holes was an easy early win for the former Middlesbrough boss.

But his first full season in charge has begun poorly. A sole win against promoted Ipswich has the club in 12th even after £150m spent in the summer.

Pressure will be back on him as soon as the international break is over, but Carrick has done little to prove he is at the required level.

5. Erik ten Hag

On paper, a 55% win rate and two trophies suggest Ten Hag was a success at United, but there were serious flaws behind the numbers.

His signings were, by and large, terrible. £86million for Antony is the tip of an ugly iceberg that also includes expensive purchases of Rasmus Hojlund, Casemiro, Mason Mount and Andre Onana.

The Dutchman was also a bad man-manager and communicator, summed up by Fred’s recent comments which described him as “a piece of crap” when it came to speaking to players.

But tactically he could be very good, with his best win coming against a superior Manchester City side in the FA Cup final. However, for every good win there is a 7-0 to Liverpool and 6-3 at the Etihad defeat to counter it.

QUIZ: Can you name all 48 players Erik ten Hag used as Man Utd manager?

4. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

After Mourinho had released a mushroom cloud of toxicity, United needed their belly rubbed and a pat on the head. Enter Ole.

The biggest achievement of Solskjaer’s career was instilling a positive attitude, something that contributed to 91 wins out of 168 matches.

But Solskjaer was always the bridesmaid. United reached four semi-finals under the Norwegian and lost them all. When they finally did get past the hurdle in the 2021 Europa League final, they lost to Villarreal.

His tenure was also massively upended by the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo. While a great PR win,  accommodating Ronaldo comes at a cost to the rest of the team and a 5-0 loss to Liverpool highlighted the disparity between Solskjaer and the likes of Jurgen Klopp.

3. Louis van Gaal

After the Moyes experiment failed, United opted for experience in Van Gaal.

This was a man who had managed Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and the Netherlands so was no stranger to the pressure that comes with top jobs.

But he was in his 60s by the time he arrived at Old Trafford and already looked like a manager whose best years were behind him.

A 2-1 defeat to Swansea in his first game was an early warning sign and Van Gaal spent far too long suggesting his team was not adjusted to his methods yet.

To make matters worse, the football was ponderous. United fans chanted for more attacks but Van Gaal is as stubborn as they come and insisted on sticking to his slow build-up.

He did though push United back towards the top of the table and, crucially, Champions League qualification.

Van Gaal also won the first silverware of the post-Ferguson era before being shuffled off for Mourinho.

2. Jose Mourinho

There’s a price you pay when you hire Mourinho.

The positives of his reign are a second-place finish behind Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, which has since been labelled as illegal. Even before the verdict, Mourinho described that season as one of his greatest accomplishments as a manager.

He also brought silverware back to the club with a League Cup win, Europa League and the Community Shield, something he referred to as a treble.

On a player front, he oversaw the departure of an ageing Wayne Rooney, which was always going to be a tricky bridge to cross, and generally made the team better than the sum of its parts.

Yet the cost of Mourinho is the position he left the club in.

By the end of his 31-month tenure, the dressing room was toxic. He had fallen out with the board, fallen out with Paul Pogba and took to publicly calling out the likes of Luke Shaw and Anthony Martial.

The result was a sigh of relief when Mourinho left and United needed a morale booster in the form of Solskjaer to shake the Jose cloud.

1. Sir Alex Ferguson

Obviously.

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