Man Utd Q&A: Carrick, Poch, INEOS and more answered

Kaveh Solhekol has answered your latest questions on Manchester United, with Michael Carrick’s future up in the air, the club in the relegation zone and more issues behind the scenes.

Answering your questions live on Sky Sports News, the chief correspondent discussed a range of topics on the situation at Old Trafford.

Read on for his answers in the latest Q&A…

Will Man Utd ever be sold?

Mikey asks: Will the board sell the club? Changing the manager will make no difference. How can United actually improve?

I don’t think it’s up to the board to sell the club. The Glazer family could decide to sell their stake in Manchester United, but somebody would have to offer them billions and billions of pounds or dollars for them to be tempted to sell.

Who knows? If they get an offer, they may think, we’ve had enough of all the grief that’s associated with owning Manchester United. Even though we’ve made a lot of money from it, now is the time to make even more money.

I think if they were going to put Manchester United up for sale, they would do what they did last time around, four or five years ago, which is to instruct a merchant bank or an investment bank to sell the club. I think last time around, it was a Raine Group who were based in New York.

There’s been no indication that anyone has been instructed to sell the Glazers’ shareholding in Manchester United. If you wanted to buy Manchester United or some of the shares, you could also go to Jim Ratcliffe, make him an offer for his 30 per cent share.

There’s also the interesting situation where I think if you bought the Glazer family’s shares, then there are things called drag-along rights, which would mean that Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS would also have to sell their shares as well.

That complicates the picture as well. Look, if you’re asking me today, are Manchester United for sale? No, they’re not. No one has said that they are for sale, but who knows what is going on behind the scenes?

There could be billionaires out there who are thinking about making a bid to buy Manchester United, but we have no information that that is the case, and there’s been no official word that that’s the case.

Is a Middle Eastern takeover a possibility?

Adam asks: Is there any talk of a potential takeover by a UAE or Middle East consortium?

The rival bidder was from Qatar. It was Sheikh Jassim. One of the things he was going to do was to pay off Manchester United’s debts so there would be no historic Glazer family debt, and he had big plans for the club, but the Qataris were unwilling to overpay.

Their feeling was that the Glazer family were asking for just too much money and the numbers did not make sense for them. I don’t know. I think there was talk of like five, six billion pounds, and the Qataris were thinking, hey, we bought PSG for around 100 million pounds.

Abu Dhabi, members of the royal family there, bought Manchester City for around 150, 160 million pounds. So why should we be paying five, six billion pounds for a club that we don’t think is in a particularly good state?

Now, are there people from that part of the world looking at buying Manchester United at the moment? I don’t think so because there’s the Middle East conflict going on at the moment. There’s a lot of instability in that region that has affected finances.

The price of oil has been going up and down. You can’t get oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. So I think people in that region have more on their plate at the moment than launching a bid to buy Manchester United.

Are Man Utd still a draw as a big club?

Mark asks: Do we have to just accept that Manchester United are not the big club they once were and do not have the pull that they used to have?

Absolutely. Manchester United used to be the richest club in the world. Number one club in the world.

Richer than Real Madrid, Barcelona. Always number one. And that was 10, 15 years ago.

Things have changed. Now they’re about the eighth or ninth richest club in the world. They’ve been overtaken by Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich.

In England, they’ve been overtaken by Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City as well. So no, I agree with that question. They do get a lot more media attention than they deserve considering where they are and what they’ve become.

But if you speak to anybody in the media, they will say that if you want to make money in the media, talk about Manchester United because there is so much interest in them. I think when it comes to English clubs, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal are the big three.

Why did they keep Carrick on?

Tom S asks: Why did they keep Carrick on after the end of the season? I could see this happening from a mile off. Solskjaer 2.0.

That’s a good point. I think the reason they decided to go with Michael Carrick was that he did well as the interim. He got United into the Champions League.

They finished third. And also, he was the least risky option, I suppose. Looking back, you can argue it was a mistake because there were lots of other managers available.

Normally, managers are not really available and out of work, but you could have had your pick. You could have taken Andoni Iraola. You could have taken Xabi Alonso.

You could have taken Thomas Frank. You could have taken Oliver Glasner. Assuming they all wanted to come. Marco Silva. There were lots of managers. Antonio Conte was available.

Roberto De Zerbi, before Spurs got him towards the end of last season. He was available after he was sacked as well. So there were a lot of managers out there, but United decided to go with Carrick.

Should Man Utd stick with Carrick?

Stu asks: Surely at some point Manchester United have to stick with the manager and the board should give Carrick time and the support he needs. Does Kaveh agree?

100%. I would like to see Carrick keep his job.

I think the way he has been treated, especially over the past few days and weeks, leaves a really, really bad taste in the mouth. You’re talking about somebody who’s won 11 major trophies with Manchester United. He’s won five league titles with Manchester United and basically, he’s been hung out to dry.

Isn’t Poch just another stop-gap?

Trev asks: What is the thinking behind selecting Mauricio Pochettino as the next Manchester United manager in your view? This would be his sixth club in 12 years. His career to date suggests he is a stop-gap manager and not the answer to United’s problems.

I’d agree with a lot of that.

I don’t think Mauricio Pochettino jumps out at me as the man, as though he’s the new Alex Ferguson. I think he’s got unfinished business in England. I think Manchester United are a club close to his heart.

I think he’s got a lot of respect for Alex Ferguson. There were stories that back in 2013 he went for lunch or dinner with Ferguson and that led to reports that he was being groomed to take over.

So I think one day he would like to manage Manchester United, but having seen what the job has done to so many other managers and knowing Pochettino to be such a nice guy, I’m not sure I would wish the Manchester United job on him in the present circumstances.

Why not go for Ancelotti?

Kieron F asks: If the club are considering paying up Pochettino’s US contract, why not go all the way and go for Carlo Ancelotti from Brazil? World-class and proven in so many ways.

I can’t see that happening. I was at the World Cup in the summer, covered a few Brazil games, went to Brazil training sessions, saw Carlo Ancelotti.

He’s managing Brazil. Why would he want to swap that for managing Manchester United when they’re 18th in the Premier League?

Are Berrada and Wilcox’s futures in doubt?

Dave asks: Have any indications been given as to whether Berrada and Wilcox’s futures will be discussed as part of this review with Ratcliffe?

Well, it’s interesting because what we are hearing is that the chief executive and the director of football are going to go and see Jim Ratcliffe and present to him the findings of their review. And they’re likely to recommend that Michael Carrick should be replaced.

Ratcliffe is very, very successful. He’s a very rich man. He’s built a massive business empire.

And I don’t think at that meeting he will just sit there in silence. I think he will have questions as well. And I think some of his questions will be looking at those two people and thinking, are you part of the solution or are you part of the problem? Because you are supposed to be in charge of hiring managers, buying players, yet here we are again.

And now it’s worse than ever because we’re in the relegation zone. And for the third season in a row, people are saying to me that we need to sack a manager, pay him off, we need to appoint a new manager, pay compensation to get him as well. I’ve got to speak to the Glazers as well.

What are they going to make of this? Maybe they’ve got a different point of view as well. So I don’t think it’s going to be a very simple meeting. It’s not just going to be a case of, these are our findings, this is what we think you should do.

Ratcliffe saying, yeah, I hear that, yeah, I’m going to do that, thank you very much. It would be awkward for them. I think it would be quite awkward.

Ratcliffe doesn’t live in a bubble. He will be, even though he hasn’t been to United games recently, he’ll be watching all United games. I know for a fact that he reads some of the media.

So he will be aware of everything that is going on. And I’m pretty sure that there would have been meetings at INEOS to discuss what needs to be done.

So I don’t think the recommendation that he’s going to get tomorrow is going to be the be-all and end-all of everything.

I think he’s across everything and I think the Glazer family are across everything as well. And they’ll be aware of the results and the performances and also be aware of the fact that they’re getting a lot of heat from United fans again.

Should Utd change recruitment strategy?

Andy asks: Do you think Manchester United should adapt and approach recruitment like Brentford or Brighton?

That’s what everyone would like to do. What has been really strange about Manchester United’s recruitment strategy, is something that really has never been done in football before, which is to spend one summer buying forwards, then the next summer buying midfielders, then next summer buying defenders.

If you speak to anybody in football, they say what you need to do is build the spine of a team. Have a really good goalkeeper, centre-back, midfield, and a really, really good forward. They say United should have signed players like Declan Rice, like Harry Kane.

You know, they need somebody like Virgil van Dijk. They need character, personality, like they used to have in the old days. They don’t have that anymore.

So I think recruitment has been a big, big problem at United, and it’s been a problem as well because they’ve had to cut their cloth accordingly. Because I think Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos have come in and they’ve looked at some of the contracts the players have had, the wages they’ve been earning, and recruitment has been so, so bad, and so much money has been squandered that they have said, look, enough is enough. We have to be much, much more careful with the money we spend.

You need to spend money like it’s your own money. I think that is one of the sort of mantras at INEOS, and that is one of the mantras that has got Jim Ratcliffe to where he’s got to in the business world.

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