The managers of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur are the first two who were appointed in 2026. They’re already right in the middle of the list of Premier League bosses from longest serving to shortest, and they’re already under pressure.
Michael Carrick and Roberto De Zerbi collide on Saturday, six matches into the new Premier League season. According to some markets, they’re the two favourites to be the next manager in the division to be sacked.
It’s difficult to argue against those odds. Man United and Spurs are clubs with pedigree and a certain weight of expectation, but also with differing degrees of underperformance having dogged them in recent seasons.
Man United’s form will improve unless they invite further chaos
Big clubs and bad results make for a treacherous path for managers, to put it mildly, and Man United won one of their first five league matches this season. Spurs, bottom of what may or may not pass as the Premier League table, only have two draws to show for their efforts.
On that basis alone, Carrick and De Zerbi must be among the favourites for the chop. The only other winless managers are Alvaro Arbeloa of Fulham and AFC Bournemouth’s Marco Rose, both drafted in when their predecessors were poached and in their very early days in charge.
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Results matter most when there’s a lack of hard evidence that a manager will turn them around.
Aston Villa and Coventry City are both in the bottom five thanks to four-match winless runs out of the gate. Unai Emery has been in his post longer than every other Premier League manager but Mikel Arteta. Frank Lampard, meanwhile, is striding towards two years at Coventry.
Both have earned time and patience. It’s a different tale for Carrick and De Zerbi even before the chasm between expectation and reality at their clubs is taken into account. It makes sense that they’d be the favourites for the sack. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be premature if it happened.
Man United and Spurs meet in their sixth Premier League games of 2026/27. It’s nearly the middle of October.
It’s both early in the season and not, and it’s surely obvious to everybody that the transfer window being open until September and an extended international break arriving before the end of the same month makes for a disrupted opening.
Losing to Spurs would leave Man United winless in four and Carrick would be nudged closer to the exit if his current team somehow contrived to lose at home against his old one, but the inevitable noise about him getting the boot should be left at that.
Their squad is better than one win in five. That’s a criticism of Carrick’s start in 2026/27 but it’s a reason to be optimistic, too. There are players in his team, leaders, who are good enough to get things moving.
There was a bounce factor in Man United's climb to third last season, the suggestion being that a simplified brief, a breath of fresh air and round pegs in round holes were all that was needed to unshackle the faltering talent.
It’s too soon to write that off as the limit of Carrick’s abilities. He was there for half a season and sharp enough to turn that theory into practice, for starters, even if the first taste of adversity in his second spell in the dugout is cause for concern.
A club of Man United’s heft is likely to be its own biggest threat almost by definition. When the Red Devils are right on and off the pitch, they take some stopping.
They need stability. They need to keep their cool. Carrick won’t and shouldn’t be backed indefinitely, but five and indeed six matches into a new season is no time to risk a gunshot to the toes.
Doubts over De Zerbi are warranted but must be considered in context
Carrick welcomes Spurs to Old Trafford on Saturday and will face their manager for the second time in his young head coach career. De Zerbi’s Brighton & Hove Albion won 5-1 at Middlesbrough in the FA Cup nearly four years ago but his struggles in the early part of 2026/27 are there for all to see.
He’s hardly the only Spurs manager that can be said about. Consecutive seasons of finishing just outside the relegation zone can’t just be left behind as if they were no big deal and even a big-spending summer is no guarantee of a reset to some forgotten norm.
Spurs have become a tough gig, but while FourFourTwo can’t be sure De Zerbi is the man to turn them around, it’s going to take a lot longer than five or six Premier League matches to be convinced that he’s not.
De Zerbi had a different target to aim at over a shorter period than Carrick when he was parachuted in last season, but he too did what was required of him. Both of them did the job that was asked from a challenging starting point and both of them have had to plan around significant disruption along with 18 other Premier League managers.
Regardless of Saturday’s result, it’s too soon for the losing manager to be dismissed. Both clubs need to hold their nerve, at least for now, because their bosses have both delivered more already than their predecessors.
Too soon doesn’t mean wrong, however. It just means too soon.
