Manchester United’s Premier League trip to Burnley on Wednesday evening will be overseen by Darren Fletcher but the club are reportedly working on hiring a different interim coach for the remainder of the season before making a permanent hire ahead of the 2026–27 campaign. Crystal Palace’s Oliver Glasner is described as the “top target.”
Fletcher spent the best part of a decade-and-a-half in United’s first team as an unsung midfield cult hero, playing a role in five Premier League titles alongside triumphs in the FA Cup, EFL Cup, Club World Cup and Champions League. The former Scotland international currently serves as the club’s Under-18s coach but has been parachuted in for this midweek match following Ruben Amorim’s abrupt departure on Monday.
However, it doesn’t appear as though Fletcher’s temporary reign will be extended long beyond Turf Moor.
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Rather than naming a permanent successor for Amorim mid-season—which was how they went about acquiring the Portuguese tactician—the plan is to first appoint a stop-gap interim for the remaining domestic fixtures while working on a long-term succession plan,” The Times first reported.
These claims were swiftly supported by BBC Sport, who added that Fletcher is not under consideration for this temporary position. He may, however, be required to oversee Sunday’s FA Cup third round tie against Brighton & Hove Albion depending on the speed of appointment.
This is not unchartered territory for United. Ralf Rangnick was brought in as early as December 2021 following the disastrous end to Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s tenure and lasted 29 games across all competitions. It didn’t work out so well; Rangnick’s attempts to stop the bleeding resulted in the worst Premier League points-per-game ratio of any previous United boss—until Amorim came along, that is.
In the scrambled search for an interim, teams often lean on cliché and turn to a figure who “knows” the club. Michael Carrick has been raised as an ideal candidate in this regard. A fellow former midfielder like Fletcher, Carrick even has experience of patrolling the Old Trafford dugout following his three-game stint as caretaker at the end of 2021.
The former Middlesbrough boss is currently unattached and could lay claim to the permanent job should he do well.
If United opt for a more senior managerial figure who would be able to be immediately appointed, Sir Gareth Southgate is out of work following the end of his England tenure and boasts strong ties to the INEOS board.
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Just as he was once the Chelsea job opened up, Crystal Palace’s Glasner has been quickly lauded as a viable candidate for United. The Telegraph go so far as to claim that the Austrian boss is the “top target” for the Red Devils. Given United’s approach will now revolve around summer hires, acquiring Glasner could prove to be abundantly straightforward as he is out of contract with Palace in June.
The same holds for Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola, although the Basque boss is not rated as likely a hire as Marseille’s divisive Roberto De Zerbi. The outspoken Italian was thought to be a candidate for United in the summer of 2024—when they ultimately plumped for the short-lived continuation of Erik ten Hag—only to snub the Red Devils for Marseille.
In one of his first team talks to his new players, De Zerbi beamed an image of the contract United had offered him via an overhead projector. “This is the contract they offered me, a contract of several seasons, with the salary you imagine,” De Zerbi is said to have declared according to L’Équipe. “This is where I haven’t been, because I put my passion before money. I came to Marseille for passion.”
Fellow former candidates have returned to the fold in the form of Fulham’s Marco Silva, Ipswich Town’s Kieran McKenna and Newcastle’s Eddie Howe. Intriguingly, United have also been linked with a trio of international managers bound for this summer’s World Cup; Julian Nagelsmann (Germany), Mauricio Pochettino (USMNT) and Thomas Tuchel (England).
While Nagelsmann is locked in a contract until Euro 2028, both the ex-Chelsea pairing of Pochettino and Tuchel are set to be unattached following this summer’s competition. While Pochettino has openly pleaded for a Premier League return, the transfer structure which so infuriated Amorim has often been a sore point for Tuchel in his past club jobs.
