Sports Poets Society

GUARDIAN DESIGN/ GETTY IMAGES  Racehorse Rock of Gibraltar, Avram  and Joel Glazer and Michael Carrick ‘Like all tragedies, it begins with a small moment’ Jonathan Wilson reflects on how the Rock of Gibraltar affair led to United’s demise Dramatic fallout between Alex Ferguson and a former shareholder ushered in this era of failure at Old Trafford For 20 years, United have been addled by debt and have made consistently terrible decisions 27 Oct 2026 - The Guardian Jonathan Wilson 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. The 3-0 home defeat against Bournemouth on Sunday, coming on the back of the 4-1 reverse against Como last week, 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 1...

Michael Carrick’s side again struggled against a back five as the promoted hosts exploited set-piece weakness 24 Aug 2026 - The Guardian Andrew Beasley Hull scored nine league goals from set plays last season, the joint-fewest in the Championship . Yet two in 21 minutes earned them a victory over Manchester United on Saturday. It was a disastrous start to the campaign for the visitors. While Michael Carrick said before the game it would not be easy, he would not have expected victory being so straightforward for Hull. It was a match United simply had to win given the gulf in resources and expectation. Opta rated their chance of victory at 68.9% before kick-off. United’s inability to deal with Oli McBurnie as the target man was painful to watch. Their slack defending on the set pieces from which Hull scored will also draw focus. Their attacking should be the greatest concern, though. A glance at expected goal numbers can paint a false impression. Hull generated 1.01 expected goals to...

Premier League season will start with nine clubs led by new coaches with only three three Englishmen in top jobs 10 Aug 2026 - The Guardian Andrew Beasley Nine of the 20 Premier League clubs will begin the 2026-27 season with a different man in the dugout than the one who ended the last campaign. The only other seasons which started with so many men making their managerial debut for top flight clubs were 1888-89 and 1946-47; the inaugural season of league football and the first following the second world war. Neither occurred under normal circumstances yet the level of turnover this summer does not feel unusual. Job security has never meant less in the Premier League. Adding in Roberto De Zerbi and Michael Carrick – confirmed in March and May respectively – means 11 teams are led by coaches with less than a year in the hotseat. The most recent similar season was 2016-17. Heading into that campaign, 10 clubs had managers with less than one year in the role. But with respect to the curre...