Next Man Utd manager: Enzo Maresca, Oliver Glasner, Andoni Iraola and Ruben Amorim's potential permanent successors - ranked

Every time the United job becomes vacant, Zinedine Zidane is linked to it. He is merely here as an obligation to keeping the tradition alive.

The former Real Madrid boss will not be heading to Old Trafford. If he is to return to management again, it's almost certainly going to be with the France national team, not in the Premier League.

"I will definitely return to coaching. In the future, I don't know, one of my goals is to coach the French national team. We'll see," he said back in October, one month before French media began reporting he would indeed succeed Didier Deschamps.

Unai Emery has done brilliantly to rebuild his reputation in English football. He was deemed a failure at Arsenal after taking on the unenviable job of succeeding Arsene Wenger, but after a short stint back home in Spain with Villarreal - which included beating United in the 2021 Europa League final - he is back at the top of his game.

Having found Aston Villa in a relegation scrap, Emery has turned them into consistent top-four contenders and rebuilt the club in his image. Therein lies why he probably won't be heading to Old Trafford. Villa will give everything in order to keep Emery, and United probably won't be able to offer the same level of power and autonomy he currently enjoys in the West Midlands.

Eddie Howe feels like the INEOS sporting philosophy bottled in a football manager, focusing on mindset and self-improvement. That, plus millions and millions of pounds, is what has made his Bournemouth and Newcastle teams so dynamic.

The Magpies haven't quite hit expectations this season, but they're still likely to reach the Champions League knockout stages and well in with a shout for a top-four finish. Unless those on Tyneside decide now is the time to part company with Howe and move in a new direction, he won't be in the frame for the United gig.

The one manager, the one person altogether, who's even more INEOS-coded than Howe is Sir Gareth Southgate. Marginal gains and committing to culture while ultimately not actually winning championships anyway? Yeah, that's the good stuff.

Southgate and INEOS have long been said to have a great relationship, but the ex-England boss has made clear he's not going to return to management just for the sake of it.

"I am not desperate to stay in football," he said in November. "I have had 37 years in football. You can never say never, because I have just seen Martin O'Neill at his age go to Celtic, but it is not something that is high on my agenda at the moment. I am enjoying the work around leadership. I am enjoying my work with young people. I am very determined to try and make a difference there. And so, I am very relaxed about not being in football at the moment."

The Three Lions role suited Southgate to a tee, but the cut-and-thrust of the Premier League with one of the most scrutinised clubs in the world wouldn't.

United confirmed on Monday that former midfielder Fletcher has been placed in interim charge of the first team. The Scot returned to the club in 2021 as a technical director and last summer was given the Under-18s manager's job.

There's half a chance this experience both upstairs and on the training ground could help Fletcher get the full-time job, putting together a string of results a la Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in 2018-19, but it's still an improbable outcome nonetheless. United's best hope is Fletcher makes the team loom competent and the sum of its parts again before deciding on a permanent successor to Amorim, but could they be swayed to keep him if they go on a run and secure Champions League qualification?

Unlike many of the names on this list, ex-midfielder Michael Carrick actually has experience of managing United. He was a key member of Solskjaer's backroom staff until the Norwegian's sacking in November 2021, after which Carrick took caretaker charge prior to Ralf Rangnick's arrival until the end of that season.

Carrick, to his credit, won two and drew one of his three games in the dugout, and they weren't exactly easy games either. A 1-1 draw away at title-chasing Chelsea was followed by a last-gasp win away at Villarreal in the Champions League. His final match saw United beat Arsenal 3-2 at Old Trafford.

Deciding to pursue his career as a head coach rather than an assistant, Carrick left and was appointed Middlesbrough manager in 2022, guiding them to the Championship play-offs in his first season, and they remained contenders for promotion before his sacking last summer.

To paraphrase every middle-aged pundit ever, Carrick knows the club. Would that be enough to convince INEOS?

If United do want a short-term option to bring them back to stability, then picking up the phone and convincing Solskjaer to return might not be the worst idea in the world.

He's done it before, he loves the club and probably wouldn't be under any illusions over the length of his tenure this time around. There was even talk of that post-Ten Hag and pre-Amorim. The optics of such a return would be difficult for the top brass to stomach though, and that's before you think of the potential parallels to Frank Lampard heading back to Chelsea in 2023 and winning only once in his 11 games.

The best candidate of Solskjaer's former staff is undoubtedly Kieran McKenna, who has worked miracles as manager of Ipswich Town. He found them squandering in League One back in 2021, but back-to-back promotions starting from his first full season saw the Tractor Boys return to the Premier League in the span of two years.

They were relegated at the end of 2024-25 without much of a fight, but you could hardly blame McKenna for not keeping a team which still had plenty of players from their days in the third tier for not staying up. Ipswich seem primed to be promoted back to the top-flight this season, too.

Again, the issue here is public perception. Could United really get away with appointing a Championship manager to solve this crisis?

After his abrupt exit from Brighton in 2024, Roberto De Zerbi was one of several candidates spoken to by United's new hierarchy as they weighed up the future of Erik ten Hag. The plus side of the Italian was the style of play he preaches, often praised by other managers as one of the game's best tacticians and thinkers. The negatives were how combustible and temperamental he could be.

In the end, they opted to stick with Ten Hag for a few months more, while De Zerbi, who claimed to have even received a contract offer from United, headed to France to manage Marseille. Though you'd imagine he'd be keen on a Premier League return, it's hard to envisage the Red Devils' powerbrokers wanting someone so fiery to lead them through this stage of their project, despite their continued admiration of the Italian.

With seemingly every chance he gets, Mauricio Pochettino talks up returning to Tottenham one day. The United States boss hasn't hidden from his desire to manage in the Premier League again, particularly if the opportunity came with Spurs.

But there's a history between Pochettino and United that just won't go away. When Jose Mourinho was sacked in 2018, the Argentine was the immediate favourite to replace him. Tottenham were rattled so much that they even asked journalists not to ask questions on the subject. The job went to Solskjaer on that occasion, but when the Norwegian left a couple of years later, Pochettino was pitted in a direct head-to-head with Ajax's Ten Hag. Again, Pochettino lost out.

Pochettino wouldn't be available until after the U.S.' World Cup campaign on home soil this summer, but his insistence on managing in England once more means he has to be a contender for United again after Fletcher's interim spell.

The second of three managers who won't be an option until the World Cup concludes, Thomas Tuchel is another name who has held talks over the United job before. Like De Zerbi, the club decided against furthering discussions in order to stand by Ten Hag.

Of all the coaches on this list, Tuchel is both the most accomplished and the most qualified. There aren't many better active managers in all of football. But can United really go back to him with their tails between their legs and say they were wrong to overlook him two years ago? Could they ask Tuchel to come and sort them out 24 months behind schedule? It might be worth a try if they want to be successful.

In retrospect, Xavi's tenure as Barcelona head coach was pretty successful. He took over in 2021 with them ninth in La Liga and still reeling from Lionel Messi's summer departure, but led them back to second place that season before winning the title the following year, all the while continuing to promote and trust in youth. That was against the backdrop of Barca's financial crisis and the relentless pressure of the Spanish press.

That hounding clearly took a toll on Xavi, who seemed drained by the time he left the club in 2024. The English press is much tamer in comparison, while he has previously suggested he would love to test himself in the Premier League. United might be able to provide him with that opportunity, with reports in recent months claiming the 45-year-old would relish such a chance.

On paper, Julian Nagelsmann is the exact sort of head coach that United in the INEOS era should be chasing. He's tactically flexible, modern in every sense and proven both at massive teams (Germany and Bayern Munich) and those looking to break into the established elite (RB Leipzig and Hoffenheim).

Still only 38 and at the top of his game, Nagelsmann feels destined to manage in the Premier League one day. As with Pochettino and Tuchel, that may not come until after the World Cup, but if he can give United his word that he will take the job as soon as Germany's tournament is over, he would almost definitely be worth waiting for.

Imagine time travelling back to Christmas Day and say that the unemployed Enzo Maresca would be in the running to succeed the sacked Amorim. What a wild start it's been to 2026!

Given how many Manchester City alumni are already making the big decisions at United, from CEO Omar Berrada to director of football Jason Wilcox, you'd think they'd already have Maresca, their former U23s coach, on their radar. But talks about succeeding Pep Guardiola across town, plus his Chelsea dismissal being almost parallel to Amorim's, means it would be hard to sell Maresca on a project where he again doesn't play a larger and more important role. Maybe those existing relationships with the Old Trafford hierarchy could make that an easier for him to swallow, however.

If United want a modern, proven head coach who's happy to play his part as a cog in the system on the training pitch and in the dugout, then Andoni Iraola should be in their thinking. Bournemouth, despite losing all of their best players year on year, remain the most entertaining team in the Premier League, not least showcased by their thrilling 4-4 draw at Old Trafford just last month. They have a clear style and philosophy regardless of which players are on the pitch.

The appointment of Amorim proved to be a failure because he wasn't suited to the week-to-week pressures of the Premier League and wanted to have a bigger say in club matters. It didn't fall apart because of the club's ambition. A swing on Iraola, someone with two-and-a-half years of positive experience in England and has recognised his standing as only the head coach of a mid-table team like Bournemouth, may be seen as similarly radical, but there would at least be method behind that madness this time around.

Crystal Palace's successful 2025 using a similar 3-4-3 system to Amorim's which crashed and burned saw Oliver Glasner heavily linked to the United post. With the Austrian unlikely to stay at Selhurst Park beyond the expiration of his contract this summer, expect these stories to return to the news cycle again.

With United partway to constructing a 3-4-3 that has more square pegs in square holes, you can understand if the board pivot to Glasner to pick up where Amorim left off and work from there. Promise him what Steve Parish can't at Palace and he might make the step up to an elite-level manager.

Glasner might be at that level already having already won the Europa League and FA Cup, and sooner or later a top club will give him a go. Why can't that be United? And, judging by reporting from the Daily Telegraph who say he's indeed their top target, why won't that be United?