Manchester United's spending on correcting mistakes under Sir Jim Ratcliffe is set to surpass £50million this week, with the expected sacking of manager Michael Carrick and the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino adding to the bill.
United will soon be averaging more than £50,000 a day in spending to clean up errors made by Ratcliffe, chief executive Omar Berrada, and director of football Jason Wilcox since Ratcliffe's £1.25bn investment in the club was completed in February 2024.
Third manager sacked under Ineos
The decision to sack Carrick and his backroom staff, due to be signed off at a meeting in Monaco on Wednesday between Ratcliffe, Berrada and Wilcox, and replace him with current USA boss Pochettino, will add to the cost of changes at the club over the past 33 months.
That expenditure began with Ratcliffe's decision to hire Dan Ashworth from Newcastle. United paid £3million to the Magpies for Ashworth, only to sack the director of football four months later at a cost of £4.1million in compensation.
Costly managerial changes
Ineos then dithered over whether to ditch Erik ten Hag in the summer of 2024, instead handing him a new contract after he won the FA Cup. That reprieve lasted a matter of months before he was sacked at the end of October 2024, at a cost of £10.4million.
United prioritised Ruben Amorim as Ten Hag's replacement and were determined to appoint him mid-season, spending £11million to secure Amorim and his backroom staff from Sporting. The Portuguese head coach lasted just 63 games in charge of United and was sacked in January 2026. United's compensation bill for those departures came in at £8.2million, which was £8.5million cheaper than it could have been, thanks to Amorim taking the AC Milan job in the summer.
Carrick and Pochettino costs
Hiring Carrick involved no extra fees as the former United midfielder was out of work when he was appointed nine months ago. He signed a two-year contract in May, but that deal is thought to have a one-year break clause, so the cost of compensation to the 45-year-old and his backroom team is likely to come in at around £5million.
Pochettino has a $10million (£7.5million) release clause in his contract with the US Soccer Federation, but the final bill is likely to be higher than that. The 54-year-old is expected to bring trusted lieutenants, including assistant Jesus Perez, assistant coach Miguel D'Agostino and goalkeeper coach Antonio Jimenez, with him, while his son Sebastiano is also a sports scientist who is working with his father in the US.
The expenditures on the dismissal of Carrick and his staff, and the cost of hiring Pochettino and his backroom team, will only be revealed in the New Year, when United's accounts for October to December are released, but it seems certain to take the cost of such decisions to more than £50million in the Ineos era.
