Jason Wilcox's Contingency Plan for Manchester United: Eddie Howe Emerges as Top Candidate

Jason Wilcox has moved towards a clear favourite to replace Michael Carrick at Manchester United, with two other contenders effectively scratched from the shortlist despite ticking the right boxes.

Carrick is clinging to his job after a wretched start to the season: five defeats in United’s first 11 matches in all competitions and, most damning of all, a 4-1 humiliation away to Como on Wednesday. A Champions League debutant from Serie A outplayed and out-fought United, then watched the visitors implode off the pitch as well.

The night did more than damage the scoreline. It fractured the dressing-room façade.

Bruno Fernandes, the captain, stepped outside the usual script and publicly questioned Carrick’s tactical approach. The reaction has been ferocious. Pundits have lined up to condemn him, with Wayne Rooney tearing into Fernandes and Lisandro Martinez – who had already taken aim at technical director Jason Wilcox last week – as “selfish babies”.

The image of a unified United, bruised but together, vanished in a few sentences.

Yet Carrick survives, for now. Despite strong whispers that he might not even reach the weekend, the club has confirmed he will lead the team against Bournemouth on Sunday and front the media on Friday afternoon.

Behind that public backing, though, the machinery is already moving.

According to The Athletic, Wilcox is still supporting Carrick at this moment, but co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe retains the power to cut through that stance and make the change himself, leaning on data-driven and AI-assisted analysis as he weighs up the club’s next head coach. The vote of confidence is conditional. Everyone inside the club knows it.

So Wilcox is preparing for the worst-case scenario.

talkSPORT’s chief football correspondent Alex Crook reports that the technical director is now “leaning towards Eddie Howe” as his preferred option if Carrick’s position collapses. It is not a name plucked from nowhere. Howe has hovered around United’s planning before.

When Erik ten Hag’s future first came under serious scrutiny, Howe was already high on the radar. Then-sporting director Dan Ashworth had pushed for the Newcastle boss to be the man to take the reins at Old Trafford, only for Wilcox to eventually settle on Ruben Amorim instead. The landscape has shifted again, but Howe’s profile still appeals.

Inside the football department, not everyone is aligned. Director of recruitment Christopher Vivell is understood to be championing Julian Nagelsmann. The German coach, younger and more experimental, offers a different kind of project. Wilcox, though, is said to prefer Howe for one key reason: Premier League experience.

In a club wrestling with chaos on and off the pitch, that familiarity with the league’s demands carries weight. Crucially, Wilcox’s view is believed to resonate more strongly with Ratcliffe and the Glazer family, giving Howe a natural edge in any internal debate.

Howe has been out of work since leaving Newcastle in the summer. Reports have suggested he wanted a longer break from the intensity of management, time to reset after the strain of dragging Newcastle from relegation candidates to Champions League qualifiers. Yet the pull of Old Trafford is different. According to the same reports, the feeling within the game is that he would be interested if United come calling.

Two other names sit in the background, admired but effectively off-limits.

• Unai Emery and Fabian Hürzeler both “fit Wilcox’s criteria” for the role. Emery’s work at Aston Villa has made him one of the most respected tacticians in Europe, but prising him away from Villa Park would come at a huge cost. United are wary of the financial and political fight that move would trigger.
• Hürzeler, meanwhile, has impressed with his ideas and composure at Brighton. At 31, he represents the new wave of coaching thinking, bold and detailed. Yet he is content where he is, focused on his current project, and is not prepared to walk away for United at this point in his career.

So the shortlist narrows.

Carrick stays in the dugout this weekend, under the brightest of spotlights. Above him, Jason Wilcox refines his contingency plan. And somewhere between a restless dressing room, a furious fanbase and an ownership group flirting with algorithmic solutions, Eddie Howe’s name keeps rising to the top.

If Bournemouth turn Sunday into another crisis, the question may not be whether United change manager – but how quickly they can get Howe through the door.