Paul Pogba Backs Michael Carrick as Right Man for Manchester United
The mood around Manchester United has not felt like this for a long time. Third place in the Premier League, Champions League football secured after a two-year exile, and a manager in the dugout who looks and sounds like he belongs there.
Michael Carrick’s promotion from interim to permanent head coach always felt inevitable. Now it carries the seal of approval from one of the club’s most high-profile former players: Paul Pogba.
From uncertainty to authority
The 2025/26 campaign began in familiar turbulence. Under Ruben Amorim, United drifted – flashes of promise, but little cohesion, even less consistency. Results wobbled, belief frayed, and the club made a decisive call at the turn of the year.
Carrick stepped in, initially as a stopgap. He did anything but tread water.
Across 17 Premier League games, the former United midfielder stitched together a run that changed the direction of the season: 12 wins, three draws, just two defeats. The numbers told one story. The football told another.
United played on the front foot again. They pressed higher, passed quicker, attacked with conviction. Old Trafford, so often anxious in recent years, responded. So did the dressing room. The connection between the stands, the manager and the players, long fractured, began to look like a single force again.
The club hierarchy publicly insisted there would be no rush, no emotional lurch into a permanent appointment. They would survey the market, weigh every “available and suitable option”. But as Carrick’s side climbed the table and tightened their grip on a top-four place, the reality became obvious: this was his job to lose.
Last month, the interim tag disappeared. Carrick was confirmed as Manchester United’s permanent manager.
Pogba’s seal of approval
From the outside looking in, Pogba has seen this version of Carrick before.
“I think he’s doing a great job and he did it also at the time when he was the assistant of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer,” the Frenchman told Sky Sports, reflecting on the man who moved from United’s midfield to its technical area.
“He’s a great guy, he has experience, he was a great player, and he has a very good connection with the players, you could see it when he took the team.”
That connection, Pogba suggested, is not a recent discovery but a natural extension of Carrick’s career – a calm organiser in midfield, now a steady presence on the touchline.
“I think it’s going to be good for United,” Pogba added. “I wish them the best, obviously, for him and all the staff and the players.”
Pogba knows the weight of the shirt and the noise that surrounds it. Across two spells, he made 233 appearances for United, living through title near-misses, cup wins and chaotic rebuilds. His endorsement of Carrick lands with the authority of someone who has seen the club at its most volatile.
A new era, if United grasp it
The optimism around Carrick is not built on sentiment alone. His brief spell in charge has given United a clear starting point: a recognisable style, a squad buying into it, and a platform in the Champions League to attract the calibre of player they have too often chased from a position of weakness.
The next step is obvious and unforgiving. United must back this manager in the transfer market and match his clarity with their own. The right summer window could turn a promising revival into something far more serious.
Carrick has done his part, dragging a drifting season into the Champions League places and restoring a sense of direction. The question now is whether the club can keep pace with the manager who has just put them back on the map.
