“MORE IS lost by indecision than by wrong decision,” Carmela warns Tony in The Sopranos. The Manchester United board could do with a rewatch.

Since Michael Carrick was afforded more time a fortnight ago, United have lost, won and drawn. They have gone two goals down in all three matches.

More relevantly, they have sunk into the relegation zone. Michael Carrick managed in the Championship for the best part of three years with Middlesbrough, although he could not get them out of it.

United used to insist on new signings referring to “the biggest club in the world”. They ended that hubris years ago yet would consider themselves on the same scale as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

Carrick would not still be in charge at any of those clubs if he had presided over one win in ten league fixtures and plunged the team into the bottom three. He would not have survived October.

Like his old colleague and friend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer five years ago, Carrick seems to have secured a stay of execution over the November internationals. 

Solskjaer got one more game at Watford. United were thumped 4-1. Solskjaer was booed by the away end and sacked in the morning.

This incompetent United hierarchy seem to be waiting for the supporters to audibly turn on Carrick.

They have rounded on the owners, the chief executive, the director of football and the players but the head coach’s name is being chanted with more gusto than when he was a player.

United supporters would rather show some decorum. During Solskjaer’s final weeks, they hardly chanted ‘Ole’s at the wheel’ as it no longer felt good.

Liverpool, Manchester City and Leeds fans all started singing “Ole’s at the wheel” as he became a figure of fun.

City are not in as advantageous a position to mock United.

But United are due at Anfield next week. Scousers chirped “Ten Hag’s at the wheel” as Liverpool ran riot in one of the Dutchman’s last games in the home dugout at Old Trafford in September 2024.

In December 2018, the Kop crowed “Don’t sack Mourinho” as United were beaten 3-1. Ed Woodward decided that evening Mourinho had to go and he was gone 36 hours later.

So if United matchgoers won’t strike a mutinous tone against the head coach, nearly 60,000 Scousers may make up the board’s mind on Sunday week.

However United perform at Liverpool is irrelevant, as it would have been had they gone one better and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against Aston Villa.

United are too chaotic and too unsettled to salvage the season under their coaching set-up.

At one point yesterday they had conceded more goals than any other team in Europe’s top five leagues (30). Lens’ 2-1 defeat to Marseille last night moved them ahead with 31.

United have shipped 15 goals in the last five games and gone 2-0 down in each of them.

Chelsea could get by at 2-0 with a man advantage but Villa and Roma slackened.

That the worst United side in 52 years can still summon the spirit to impersonate Sir Alex Ferguson’s greatest teams is of little consequence. United have been a comeback club for more than a century, dating back to a dog going missing in 1901.

Old Trafford was rebuilt after the Second World War. Sir Matt Busby rebuilt a team and a club decimated by the Munich air disaster.

Tommy Docherty took United straight back up after relegation in 1974. There are the innumerable ‘Fergie Time’ heists.

So some things never change at United. Old Trafford witnessed remarkable recoveries against Liverpool in the 2024 FA Cup quarter-final and Lyon in the 2025 Europa League quarter-finals before Roma.

Those United vintages were officially their worst teams in 34 years and 51 years, respectively.

This lot is worse. Carrick has been found out amid raised expectations and an increased workload, so why prolong the agony?

The short answer is United had no succession plan, cannot settle on a replacement and the decision-makers are covering their own backsides after overpromoting Carrick.

Putting Carrick in permanent charge was admittedly understandable. United were on song, rivals were about to change coach and the club could get ahead of the curve.

Then they squandered momentum with a thrifty transfer window that ended with United short of two targets.

They cut corners, from the cut-price deal for Youri Tielemans to settling with one specialist left back. Luke Shaw has appeared in 330 out of a possible 674 United matches.

United also decided against recruiting a specialist support striker while their only centre forward was recovering from a shin injury.

It will keep Benjamin Sesko sidelined for a combined seven-and-a-half months.

Yet does anyone truly believe Antonio Conte would do as bad a job as Carrick?

Since Conte’s first season at Juventus in 2011-12, he has secured top-four finishes in nine out of ten full campaigns in club management. 

In the Sopranos, Tony ends up quoting Carmela. Whilst discussing whether to get rid of a boss.