It was just over a decade ago that Manchester United broke global soccer’s transfer record, shelling out £89 million—about $118 million by today’s exchange rates—for French midfielder Paul Pogba.

In the 10 years since, 22 players have gone for more than Pogba. The last two summers alone, Premier League clubs have signed six players for more than $135 million. Meanwhile, Pogba remains United’s record transfer, and none of the club’s top five most-expensive moves have come in the past four seasons.

As the Glazer family, United’s American ownership group that also owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has plunged the club into a financial hole, competitiveness in the transfer market and results on the pitch have both suffered.

On Thursday, the club hierarchy hit the panic button. Just 10 games into a season that began with most observers predicting a second consecutive finish in the Champions League places, United fired coach Michael Carrick, with the team languishing in the relegation zone.

The club is expected to hire U.S. men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino, and it would have to pay roughly $12 million to pry Pochettino and his assistants away from U.S. Soccer. Severance payments to Carrick and his staff could also total more than $5 million. 

Those figures represent only a small fraction of United’s financial burdens. The club is currently more than $1 billion in debt and has reported a net loss in seven consecutive seasons, according to its most recent financial statements. Much of that debt can be traced to the Glazers’ initial purchase of United in 2005, a leveraged buyout which saddled the previously debt-free club with roughly $1.1 billion in borrowing.

United continued to win in the Glazers’ early years, with legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson winning the final five of his remarkable 13 Premier League titles after the takeover. But, since Ferguson departed in 2013, the storied club has yet to reclaim its domestic crown. In the same period, crosstown rival Manchester City became the dominant force in English soccer, though through possibly dubious means.

Ratcliffe Tightens the Belt

In 2024, British billionaire and Ineos chairman Jim Ratcliffe purchased a 27.7% minority stake in United and took control of soccer operations. He instituted several cost-cutting measures, which have begun to stabilize the club’s financial situation. 

United’s wage bill for the 2025–26 season was roughly $400 million, marking a 4% decrease on the previous year and a six-year low, even as wages across the Premier League ballooned. (Other teams haven’t released financial statements for 2025–26, but United’s wage bill ranked fifth in the league the prior season.) Ratcliffe has cut 322 jobs since taking over, slashing the club’s workforce by nearly 30%. 

The club finally reported an operating profit of roughly $30 million for the 2026 fiscal year, its first year in the black by that metric since 2020. Still, it is forced to pay tens of millions in interest payments each year, money which clubs with fewer debt obligations or more frequent owner cash injections can use on wages and transfer fees.

After firing manager Ruben Amorim in January, United appointed Carrick—a fan favorite from his time as a player at Old Trafford—on an interim basis. Carrick led United to a third-place finish in the second half of the season after going unbeaten in his first seven matches in charge, raising the mood at the club to its highest point in years and earning himself a permanent contract.

But Ratcliffe’s austerity has also made it harder to sustain success on the field. Whereas the Glazers’ transfer strategy was defined by ill-advised spending, including throwing more than $95 million each at abject flops Jadon Sancho and Antony in back-to-back summers, Ratcliffe’s soccer brain trust has taken a different, but equally unpopular and largely unsuccessful, approach.

This summer, the club failed to compete in a rapidly inflating transfer market. United reportedly bid roughly $112 million for former Nottingham Forest midfielder Elliot Anderson before crosstown rival Manchester City signed him for $156 million. It also entered the race for former West Ham midfielder Mateus Fernandes, but lost out to Tottenham, which narrowly survived relegation last season and coughed up $112 million.

Instead, the club turned to former Brighton midfielder Carlos Baleba ($95 million) and former Aston Villa midfielder Youri Tielemans ($46 million). Neither has moved the needle yet, and the team’s sluggish midfield has been a serious problem in its nightmarish start.

After winning just one of its first 10 league matches, United admitted buyer’s remorse and fired a coach for the third time since October 2024.

Another New Manager

Now, the club is likely turning to Pochettino, who managed Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, and Tottenham Hotspur before the U.S. According to the Daily Mail, the Glazers intervened to hire Pochettino against the wishes of CEO Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox, both Ratcliffe hires—suggesting the balance of power in the boardroom may be tilting back in the Americans’ direction after they let Ratcliffe take over operations.

Pochettino has a track record of punching above his weight under severe financial constraints, leading Tottenham to the 2019 Champions League final after it became the first Premier League club to sign no players in a summer transfer window the previous summer. 

But there’s only so much the Argentine manager can fix. With debt piling up, a transfer policy oscillating between extremes, and two ownership groups that have demonstrated little facility for soccer decisions, many of the club’s issues are far beyond a manager’s purview.