Man Utd are the football equivalent of Blockbuster and time is running out

Carrick took training on Tuesday and Wednesday while United agreed terms with Pochettino, and only then was his fate rubber-stamped in Monaco by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox, which means a man with 464 appearances for the club was sacked from the Riviera while he was putting the cones out in the grey November North West chill.

The statement that followed called him a legend, the corporate version of a leaving card signed by people who had to ask how to spell your name. 

United have won one league game in 10 and conceded 19 goals, which leaves little to say in his defence on results alone. They lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth and went down 4-1 at Como, a scoreline that sounds like a holiday gone horribly wrong.

In his last match, they were two down to Aston Villa within four minutes and needed two stoppage-time goals to draw 4-4, the kind of game that is tremendous fun for everyone without a stake in it, but a bit like being water-boarded for those involved.

Across all competitions, they have let in 30, the joint-most of any club in Europe's top five leagues. 

When Carrick was appointed in January, yours truly commented that he was "a symptom, not a solution" for a club that rarely looks "beyond the next international break". Finishing third from seventh and securing Champions League football made that viewpoint look daft for about four months. United have now sacked him during an international break.

You can't polish a turd (in third)

A defence that concedes four at home usually has a coach hovering nearby, so Carrick does not get off the hook entirely. He was, though, working with a squad that finished third last season largely on fumes. Eight of his 12 league wins came by a single goal. In truth, a mid-table squad was having the spring of its life, and the club mistook it for a team that needed just a little bit more polish.

The polish turned out to be three relatively average central midfielders for around £150 million. Carlos Baleba, £65m and delivered with an ankle injury already fitted, and Andrey Santos, £48m from Chelsea, have so far been closer to folklore characters than signings. Youri Tielemans has at least been on the pitch often enough to take some of the blame, which in this context makes him the success story.

United signed neither a left-back nor a forward; Luke Shaw and Benjamin Sesko are now both injured, and the club has in effect spent the summer fitting a new kitchen while the roof (apparently nearly literally) caved in. Even Lisandro Martinez, who has not been short of bad days himself, said after the defeat at Atletico Madrid that he expected more from the technical director. When your unreliable centre-half is dismantling the recruitment department in public, the window has not gone well.

Carrick also had to manage Bruno Fernandes, who responded to the Como defeat by criticising his manager's tactics, was left out against Bournemouth, came back to score a penalty against Roma and announced that Carrick had been right to drop him all along.

The captain also insisted the players did not need to save the manager's job, and they duly didn't.

Fernandes has been the best player at United for nearly seven years, and the trouble is that every head coach ends up building a side around a man who treats the armband like a Truth Social account.

Carrick probably could have done better with this squad, but nobody was going to do well with it.

The answer to a question from 2016

That January piece also predicted that clubs like United would "keep cycling through familiar faces", and they are now about to hire a man they have been eyeing since Sir Alex Ferguson took him to lunch a decade ago. The flirtation has gone on so long that the relationship has skipped the wedding and gone straight to hoping the new stepdad can be a positive influence on your problem kids.

The Pochettino they fell for built a title challenger at Tottenham on a modest budget and bundled his way to a Champions League final. He also had prime Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen, and Hugo Lloris, with all of them bar the South Korean and Dele already at the club. He wasn't really in charge of recruitment, either way. He also never won anything.

In the seven years since, he has overseen the only season in the past decade in which Paris Saint-Germain failed to win Ligue 1, finished sixth with a Chelsea side that set a Premier League record for bookings, and taken the United States to the last 16 of a home World Cup, where they got battered by Belgium.

He has lost four finals with three different teams, and his two trophies both came in Paris, where they are more or less handed out before a ball is kicked.

Pochettino's football runs on running, and Opta's numbers show that only Liverpool's players have covered less ground than United's this season, so he inherits a squad that regards the hard yards as an optional extra.

He is expected to start work three days before a trip to Anfield, with Champions League games in midweek and no pre-season until July. He might be lucky to last that long.

On a more positive note, he rescued a side from the bottom three before, at Espanyol in 2009, although Espanyol did not believe they were meant to be competing with Real Madrid.

Who would want this job?

Seven permanent managers have now failed at Old Trafford since 2013, and it is hard to picture any of the last five being offered another Premier League job. A top-three finish here is apparently a constructive dismissal on a timer, one that went off under Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Erik ten Hag before it got Carrick.

Pochettino is taking it because he is a bit of a romantic, because United still has some legacy pull and a decent credit history, but also because the Tottenham years are now a long way behind him. There is a 'damsel in distress' element with the club, and someone surely has to be the knight at some point, right? 

He signed a contract with US Soccer to 2030 three months ago and is walking out on it for a club in the relegation zone, which can be framed either as an absolute love for the English game or a genuine cry for help. United need him, but perhaps he needs them just as much. It could be a last roll of the dice for all involved. 

The Blockbuster of the Premier League

It would be a mistake to file this under freak seasons when Brighton are second, Nottingham Forest beat Manchester City 3-1 last weekend to nudge United into the bottom three, and Bournemouth won by three at Old Trafford without anybody even feeling remotely shocked.

These clubs have recruitment departments that outlast the head coach and wage bills that bear some relation to where they finish. Television money has made every side in the division rich enough to sign internationals, and the gap United once assumed was permanent has been closed by clubs that know exactly what they are and have a bit of foresight. 

United are a heritage brand in a league that has stopped caring about heritage entirely.

In 2000, Blockbuster turned down the chance to buy Netflix for $50m because it couldn't picture a world where people stopped driving to shops or using DVD players. United have looked at the Brightons, Brentfords and Bournemouths of the division in much the same way for a decade, and are still trying to collect late fees on 2013.

Thursday's statement suggests the message has not reached the boardroom, since it said a change was necessary "in order to achieve our ambitions". Realistically, the ambition of a club that is 18th in November is to be at least 17th in May.

The last time United had eight points after 10 games, they sacked Ron Atkinson and hired Ferguson, and that is the comparison Old Trafford will be reaching for this week.

It only works if you forget that Ferguson finished 11th that season, went until 1990 without a trophy and was given the time because the board of the day knew exactly how far the club had fallen.

Pochettino will not get four years, or anything like it, from a hierarchy that gave Carrick 10 months. He may well keep United up all the same, at which point the club will decide it is back, hand him a new contract and another £150m worth of midfielders, and start looking forward to the next international break.

The last Blockbuster, in Bend, Oregon, survives as a tourist attraction where people go to remember - even reminisce over - how things used to be.

Old Trafford does the same job, only the roof leaks.

Brad Ferguson is a senior editor for Flashscore, primarily covering football, darts, and combat sports. Currently residing by the sea in Margate, he is a recovering Tottenham Hotspur fan, England-dreamer and part-time electronic music producer when not following orders from his dog. Find him on LinkedIn.