Episodes

#1069 | Michael Carrick has been sacked as Manchester United manager and the money is flowing toward Mauricio Pochettino. Ed and Adam discuss a process that has never looked coherent. They weigh the case for and against Pochettino, why Eddie Howe, Julian Nagelsmann, and Antonio Conte look less likely, and what a new manager could mean for Bruno Fernandes’s future. Picking the manager is the easy part. The new man inherits the same sporting department, the same CEO, and the same owners who promi...

#1068 | Michael Carrick has been sacked as Manchester United manager, according to reports late on Monday night. United had not confirmed it at the time of recording. Ed and Dharnish record an emergency pod to discuss how it came to this. Carrick earned his shot at the job last season but was left short in the summer. He then tried to evolve the team to a ball-dominant, high-pressing approach that never worked. Injuries, unhappy players, and a drop in Bruno Fernandes’s form turned a poor start ...

#1067 | Manchester United and Aston Villa played out a 4-4 Premier League draw at Old Trafford. It was chaos on the pitch while fans protested in the stands. United twice trailed by two goals and twice came back in dramatic fashion. Ed and Dan discuss. There’s plenty to go over, from Michael Carrick’s cautious selection to some horrendous defending. But a sliver of light in United’s attack is finally scoring goals regularly. Yet, with one win in the league, pressure remains on Carrick a quarte...

#1066 | Manchester United beat Roma, lost to Chelsea and face Aston Villa at the weekend in what could be Michael Carrick’s last game. Ed and Dharnish break down all three. What worked in the first half at Chelsea, with United overloading midfield and finding space behind Chelsea’s new full-backs. Why do Carrick’s full-backs keep pushing so high while the team is in crisis? And why did that leave United two down against Roma’s man-to-man press? Then the turnaround. What changed after half-time ...

#1065 | Manchester United finally won, beating Roma 3-2 after nine games without a victory. Ed and Daniel pick through the comeback from two goals down. There are plenty of issues to discuss. Although United started the game poorly, was it the first time all season the team looked balanced? Tielemans played a part in the winner, how will Baleba’s injury impact the team and has Leny Yoro made a case for a place at centre-back? Is Amad’s spot now Lacey’s to take? Can Cunha build on his goals when...

#1064 | United lost 2-0 at Stamford Bridge, with a promising first half turned into another second-half collapse. Ed and Wayne react to yet another defeat. Was Lisandro Martínez’s sending off the act of a player who wants out? Should he ever wear the shirt again? And how much falls on Michael Carrick, who picked the same two centre-backs and watched them part like the Red Sea for Morgan Rogers? Then the conversation moves up the chain. Is riding out two transfer windows with Carrick the only wa...

#1063 | Manchester United have given Michael Carrick more time, with no date, no number of games and no target attached. Ed and Dharnish look at what has to change in the meantime. The press comes first: a half-press in which players arrive late, leaving United’s back-four exposed. The build-up has lost its triangles and possession dominance that offers no control. United’s defence is disorganised and the most experienced centre-backs are built for a deep line, which limits how aggressively Car...

#1062 | Michael Carrick looks set to be sacked after a 3-0 home defeat to Bournemouth, coming off the 4-1 loss at Como. Ed and Daniel go through the game and the week around it. If this is the end, Carrick went out with a statement: Bruno Fernandes criticising the staff in public then sitting on the bench without being used. Then the disintegration of Carrick’s time at United, with the manager increasingly reaching for odd solutions as the season fell apart. With the squad giving Carrick very l...

#1061 | Manchester United were beaten 4-1 at Como in the Champions League. Ed and Dominic try to make sense of it. United’s pressing does not work; the players asked to lead it cannot do it, and Como passed through United at will. Carrick’s vision for the team is slipping by the week. How much is that on Carrick and how much on a club run by the same people who hired and fired ten Hag and Amorim, with a squad that was barely improved in the summer? Carrick probably won't go yet, though the No...

#1060 | Michael Carrick changed the system at Elland Road and United came home with a 1-1 draw. It was closer to a street fight than a football match for much of it. Ed and Dharnish go through United’s approach and performance, including a back three and Bruno Fernandes pushed out wide. It wasn’t very pretty but at least United matched Leeds for physicality before the second half slipped away. The point leaves United on two wins from 10 across all competitions this season. The question on every...

*Apologies for the dodgy audio on this week's episode* #1059 | Ed, Dharnish, and Daniel open in meltdown mode. Manchester United have two wins from nine and the latest crisis is the fallout from Lisandro Martinez’ criticism of Jason Wilcox. The tactics tell the story. United conceded after 50 seconds at Atletico with five players in one zone and nobody closing down. They had used a 4-4-2 mid-block against Spurs and were pulled apart anyway. The diagnosis is a team caught between pressing high...

#1058 | Ed and Dominic pick over United’s 2-0 defeat at Atletico Madrid. It was better than the scoreline but still leaves Michael Carrick under pressure. United opened with another defensive blunder but grew into the game, creating some decent chances before losing Leny Yoro to a dubious red card. But defeat is defeat and the noise around Carrick is likely to grow, especially if the run of Leeds, Como, Bournemouth, and Chelsea goes badly.Then post-match, as we were recording, Lisandro Martinez...

#1057 | Ed and Andy catch up on four straight wins for United Women, which have turned the mood around after a difficult start to the season. 10-1 against Sheffield United, a narrow victory over West Ham, 5-1 against Durham, and a single goal victory over Liverpool. The team’s personality is becoming clearer under Eva Olid. The conversation widens to goalkeeper depth and how a youth-heavy squad is developing. Then there’s a preview of the games in the coming week. Charlton in the WSL, a second...

#1056 | Ed and Daniel pick through Manchester United 1-1 Tottenham, a game United led until the 92nd minute but in which they played badly for most of the 90. The first half was as poor as anything this season, with Spurs running through United’s midfield at will. One side was moving, the other standing still. Carrick’s changes on the hour briefly changed the game, including a positive cameo from Carlos Baleba. But after Spurs were reduced to 10 men, United went into their shell and produced som...

#1055 | Ed and Dharnish talk about Manchester City's cheating three weeks on from the verdict and with the appeal under way. City's “it was government money” defence falls apart when the government, the sponsors, and the owner turn out to be one family. With club and fan denial hardening, the likeliest exit is a sale, or a vote to expel if City keep fighting. There's some chat about why Financial Fair Play was created in the first place, Andy Burnham and the UAE’s investments in the UK, and wha...

#1054 | Ed and Paul pick through the fall out from City’s guilty verdict and conclude this is a geopolitical story more than football. The outcome might well owe more to diplomacy than to Premier League rules. Andy Burnham's situation and UK ties to Abu Dhabi suggest where the pressure is coming from. There’s a long look at the City fanbase: why will so few will engage with the evidence or a reasonable discussion about what’s happened? How did a club that was once the punchline become the vehic...

#1053 | Daniel joins Ed to make the case that this was never really a football story: Manchester City's ownership is Abu Dhabi's ruling family operating through the exact same statecraft logic they apply to war, espionage and geopolitics. And that family’s refusal to ever hear the word "no" from anyone. It’s the instinct that produced the fraud itself. Trace the money and the politics: Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth, the family network tying the state, the investment vehicle, the sponsors and the...

#1052 | Jamie's latest Substack note gets the deep dive treatment: United's newly published loan documents show a real, dated path to finally clearing the $550 million Glazer-era LBO debt. The new notes are repayable at par with no further interest from 10 June 2029, but only if it's tied to a "stadium financing event," with a matching change-of-control clause built to let INEOS take a majority stake without triggering repayment. It’s complicated but clear. Jamie's model puts the realistic cost...

#1051 | Ed and Adam use the City verdict to talk about reputation rather than punishment mechanics: City's for organising the fraud, the Premier League's for taking eight years and letting itself be outmuscled by lawyers, and Pep Guardiola's, since virtually everything he won at City was built on financial cheating he spent years publicly denying. There's an awkward political dimension: City are owned by the UAE, a UK security and investment partner, and there’s scepticism that the other 19 clu...

#1050 | Ed and Dominic discuss a momentous day. Manchester City have been found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges brought by the Premier League, after a process that's run more than three and a half years, during which City won six trophies. The charges centre on disguising owner funding as sponsorship income and refusing to cooperate with investigators; no punishment has been decided yet. Expect a long appeals process before anything is actually handed down. So what is the proportionate punish...

#1049 | Manchester United's full-year financials landed the same week as defeats to City and Brighton and a draw at Fulham. Ed and Jamie's read is that the numbers tell a positive story: record revenue of £677.6 million, operating cash flow more than double what United generated the previous year, and a smaller real interest bill than the eye-catching accounting figure implies. The episode works through where the financial resilience came from: ticket price rises, strong retail performance offs...

#1048 | United Women are three games into new manager Eva Olid's reign: defeat to London City Lionesses, hammered by Chelsea, then a much-improved 1-1 draw at Arsenal, undone by a 95th-minute equaliser. Ed and Andy assess Eva Olid's start given the circumstances, a very late appointment, barely any pre-season, no marquee signings. There were some interesting changes at Arsenal, with Andrea Medina's shift into midfield the standout tactical call and performance of the three games so far. Then ...

#1047 | Another week another crisis? After United’s draw at Fulham, Ed and Dharnish push back on the reaction, arguing the underlying picture (29 shots, nearly 3 xG, more shots and box touches than any team in the league this season) suggests better times ahead. Shifts in fine margins turned this game into a mediocre week rather than a crisis. The real issue is a press that keeps failing because Bruno and Rashford aren't suited to it. Carrick keeps asking them to do it anyway. In possession, the...

#1046 | United walked away from Fulham with a draw, Mateus Cunha's equaliser cancelling out Lisandro Martinez’ own goal. Fulham were there for the taking though. United had 29 shots, 57% possession, and somehow still seemed very passive when it mattered. No disaster, but yet more points leaking away. Ed and Wayne look back on a performance that felt very familiar. The same tactical patterns are playing out. And the same weaknesses in the squad are evident too. The international break offers a m...