Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Manchester United were hammered 4-1 by Como in the Champions League on Wednesday as the pressure increased on beleaguered manager Michael Carrick, while a late Declan Rice equaliser earned Arsenal a 2-2 draw away to Bayern Munich.

Elsewhere, Real Madrid thumped RB Leipzig 4-1 and there were also notable victories for Inter Milan, Aston Villa and Real Betis.

The most remarkable scoreline, though, came in driving rain on the banks of Lake Como, where United suffered their joint-heaviest loss in the Champions League in the last 30 years.

Nico Paz scored twice for Cesc Fabregas’s Como, with Tasos Douvikas and Jacobo Ramon getting their other goals. This was a second 4-1 home win in this season’s competition for the tournament debutants.

Joshua Zirkzee pulled one back at the death for United, but they are now seven games without a win in all competitions.

The Red Devils have just one win in the Premier League this season and have now suffered back-to-back losses in Europe. Carrick’s position risks becoming untenable.

“I have not given my own position any thought,” Carrick said.

“For us to play in that way, it’s not acceptable. It wasn’t a good performance at all,” he admitted.

Last season’s beaten finalists Arsenal have seven points from a possible nine after Rice struck in the 82nd minute to earn a draw in Munich.

Bukayo Saka went off injured early on but his replacement Eberechi Eze fired Arsenal into the lead, only for Alphonso Davies to level before the interval.

Harry Kane set up that goal with a magnificent pass and then gave Bayern the lead from a second-half penalty, his 10th strike this season in all competitions.

But Arsenal hit back as Bayern registered a second straight Champions League stalemate.

“We looked dangerous, we got the goal and we had a moment there where we could have killed off the game,” Kane told broadcaster DAZN.

“Probably a draw was a fair result overall… There’s a lot of games and we’ve got players with injuries, players missing tonight, so we take the point and move on.”

Real three from three

Jose Mourinho’s Real are one of five teams with three wins from three in this season’s Champions League, as goals either side of half-time from Bernardo Silva and Arda Guler set them on their way at the Bernabeu.

Kylian Mbappe made it 12 goals in 12 games this season for Real before Tidiam Gomis pulled one back, but Yan Diomande completed Real’s victory with a spectacular volley against his former club.

“We know every point is important to get into the top eight, we know we have to win as many games as possible — we’ve won three and there are five to go,” Mbappe told Movistar.

Villa also have a perfect record after three games, as they won 3-1 at home to Viking Stavanger with Ross Barkley’s opener being followed by Emiliano Buendia’s penalty and Henrik Heggheim’s own goal.

Peter Christiansen got one back for the Norwegian champions who are still looking for their first win.

Inter had Alessandro Bastoni sent off midway through the second half before Carlos Augusto’s late goal secured a 1-0 win at home to Shakhtar Donetsk, as the Italian champions got their first points.

Betis have maximum points as an Isco penalty handed them a 1-0 win over Feyenoord in Seville.

Kvaratskhelia injured for PSG

Club Brugge defeated Lens 3-0 in Belgium as Hans Vanaken, Joaquin Seys and Carlos Forbs all found the net.

Victor Osimhen sealed a 4-2 victory for Galatasaray away to his old side Lille in France, after earlier efforts from Yunus Akgun and Aleksey Batrakov and a Nabil Bentaleb own goal.

Teenager Soriba Diaoune got both goals for Lille, who have lost three out of three.

LASK of Austria have their first points after a fine 3-2 victory over Sporting in Lisbon.

Luis Suarez scored twice for Sporting, including an early penalty, but Christoph Lang, Sasa Kalajdzic and Krystof Danek all netted in between for the visitors.

Reigning champions PSG are top of the 36-team standings after beating Barcelona 4-2 on Tuesday, but the French side confirmed Wednesday that star winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in that game.

He will undergo surgery in the coming days amid doubts as to whether he will play again this season.

Published – October 22, 2026 11:24 am IST

The 10 years Pep Guardiola spent at Manchester City represent one of the greatest acts of dynasty-building in the sporting universe.

Not only did the Catalan coach City to six Premier League titles, five League Cups, three FA Cups, one UEFA Champions League crown and one at the FIFA Club World Cup, he did so by assembling multiple great sides, revolutionising tactics, and constantly reinventing himself.

Dominant reign

Guardiola’s six Premier League trophies are second only to Alex Ferguson’s 13 at Manchester United, and even in the four years when City did not win the top prize, it stayed in the top three. No other coach won more than one Premier League title during Guardiola’s time in England.

When such a king abdicates the throne and leaves his kingdom, as Guardiola did at the end of the 2025-26 campaign, there is bound to be an almighty jostle among those below to be the immediate heir. The 2026-27 Premier League season, which got underway late on Friday (August 21), will be the battleground to decide whom the power is transferred to.

The setting is conducive for an intriguing competition. City without Guardiola will be one of nine clubs to have new coaches, and two others in Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur did not have Michael Carrick and Roberto De Zerbi in place at the start of the year.

Mikel Arteta, who secured Arsenal its first English top-flight crown in 22 years, is the most experienced, having been in the job for a little over six years and seven months. Unai Emery, who masterminded Aston Villa’s 2025-26 Europa League triumph, is next, with a stint now at roughly three years and 10 months.

Though Guardiola has exited the scene, his giant shadow still looms. Enzo Maresca, who has replaced the 55-year-old at the Etihad, and Arteta have served as his assistants. Xabi Alonso, installed as Chelsea’s new manager, was once Guardiola’s midfield marshal at Bayern Munich.

The post-Pep Premier League era will not have a clean break in terms of tactics too, for Guardiola has left a deep imprint, both in terms of the first principles he introduced, and how he evolved and shed his orthodoxies to cater to the League’s fast-changing demands.

When he first arrived, Guardiola was a cleric of the possession-heavy school and was canonical in his belief that retaining the ball was the best route to success. So much so that even goalkeepers weren’t spared; one of his first decisions at City was to replace Joe Hart, a top-class shot-stopper, with Claudio Bravo, a ball-playing goalie.

And it felt like the league as a whole — with the glorious exception of Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United — was trying to inculcate parts of it.

Guardiola then changed tack to embrace high-energy players and those with great individual skills in order to adjust to the breathless, end-to-end football that the likes of Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool) and Mauricio Pochettino (Tottenham) introduced. The controlled aggression of the earlier years made way for a more expressive and expansive style.

Philosophical blasphemy

And in his last four seasons in charge, he played with one of world football’s purest strikers in Erling Haaland. For a man who once made Lionel Messi turn out as a False 9, and then won two Premier League trophies in 2020-21 and 2021-22 with midfielders as top-scorers (Ilkay Gundogan with 13 goals and Kevin de Bruyne 15), to have Haaland score 112 times over four campaigns would have been akin to philosophical blasphemy.

However, football is now more direct and physical than in recent times and it is to Guardiola’s credit that he tweaked his methods and put in place a blueprint for success. “You need to adapt, evolve,” City’s Maresca said recently. “Set-pieces, man to man — it’s a little bit the direction where football is going. We managers… it’s our duty to find solutions.”

Who among Arteta, Carrick, Alonso, Andoni Iraola and Maresca will answer the call? For one, the sight of Arteta, Carrick and Alonso walking briskly up and down the touchline is sure to remind fans of their glory days as players for Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool not so long ago. For a certain generation, it will appear like they are reliving a childhood dream.

Arteta has the first-mover advantage, having already won the League and possessing a winning combination. The addition of Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle for GBP 75 million will reduce the inordinate burden on midfielder Declan Rice. But Arsenal’s unsuccessful pursuit of Vinicius Junior suggests that the outfit is mindful of the need of a world-class threat upfront.

Carrick, who took over at Old Trafford after the sacking of Ruben Amorim, had an impressive stint as caretaker manager, winning 12 and drawing three of his 17 matches in 2025-26, and helping United qualify for the Champions League after a two-season hiatus. The question before the astute 45-year-old is whether his United has the quality to sustain simultaneous domestic and continental challenges.

For Alonso, Chelsea is the opportunity to light up an aura that has seemingly dimmed after a failed seven-month stint as Real Madrid’s boss. The 44-year-old is known to possess a shrewd tactical brain, and his role in ending Bayern Munich’s hegemony in Germany — 11 straight Bundesliga titles from 2012-13 to 2022-23 — by leading a young Bayer Leverkusen side to its maiden crown is noteworthy. The addition of 24-year-old English attacking midfielder Morgan Rogers for a whopping GBP 117 million shows that he has Chelsea’s wholehearted trust.

Andoni Iraola’s ascent to the top job at Liverpool after making a mark at Bournemouth is eerily similar to Graham Potter’s entry into Chelsea in 2022 after a stellar show at Brighton & Hove Albion. But Potter was dismissed in less than seven months, a fate Iraola will want to avoid.

The 44-year-old is agnostic to any style of play that is not front-footed, a factor that endeared him to the Liverpool hierarchy after a dreary end to Arne Slot’s time. Can he manage to keep the club faithful happy without the services of Mohamed Salah, who left after nine glorious years?

Tough act to follow

Maresca’s situation at City is comparable to what David Moyes faced at United after the latter succeeded Ferguson in 2013. The Italian’s first test will be to not get crushed under the burden of expectations after Guardiola’s supremely successful tenure. It helps that City is not known to be trigger-happy, for both Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini enjoyed tenures lasting three years or more before Guardiola arrived.

Maresca also comes with a certain pedigree, having led Chelsea to FIFA Club World Cup glory in 2025, and has added England midfielder Elliot Anderson for a hefty GBP 116 million fee. But he will have to compete without the talismanic World Cup winner Rodri, who has shifted to Barcelona, and fellow playmaker Bernardo Silva, who has moved to Real Madrid.

Will he be guided by the spirit of Guardiola or will the ghost of Guardiola haunt him?

File picture of Manchester United’s Mason Mount
| Photo Credit: AP

Michael Carrick has been handed a two-year contract by Manchester United after passing his audition for the job of head coach with flying colors.

United confirmed on Friday (May 22, 2026) that Carrick would become its seventh permanent manager since the retirement of club icon Alex Ferguson in 2013.

“Throughout the past five we’ve shown what our club represents — resilience togetherness and a determination to succeed. Now it’s about moving forward again with ambition and purpose,” Carrick said. “This club and our supporters deserve to be challenging for the biggest honors and we’re never going to stop.”

Carrick has transformed United’s fortunes, securing qualification for the Champions League and standout wins against Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool.

His record in his short spell stands at 11 wins in 16 games, with only two losses, and he has steered the team to third in the Premier League after it finished 15th last term — a record low in the modern era.

While there is still uncertainty as to whether he can be the long-term solution for United after more than a decade of decline post-Ferguson, his impact made it nearly impossible for the club’s hierarchy to overlook him.

“Michael has thoroughly earned the opportunity to continue leading our men’s team. In the time he has been doing the role, we have seen positive results on the pitch, but more than that, an approach which aligns with the club’s values, traditions and history,” said United director of football Jason Wilcox, who led the search for the club’s next coach.

As a multiple titlewinner with United as a player, Carrick had the support of fans and club icons, who called for him to be given the job on a permanent basis. He also inspired an upturn of form in key players like Kobbie Mainoo, Casemiro and Benjamin Sesko.

Yet he is a novice coach at the top level. His only previous full-time managerial experience was at second-tier Middlesbrough from 2022-25.

United has been convinced he is up to the job long term, having given itself time to assess other candidates since he was appointed in January. Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola and Crystal Palace’s Oliver Glasner were among potential contenders to take up a role that proved too much for a succession of managers.

“Michael’s achievements in leading the club back to the Champions League should not be understated,” said Wilcox. “He has forged a strong bond with the players and can be proud of the winning culture at Carrington and in the dressing room, which we are continuing to build.”

After FergusonWilcox has put his faith in Carrick after his predecessor, Ruben Amorim, lasted just 14 months, despite arriving with a reputation as one of the top emerging coaches in Europe.

Carrick is the latest to be charged with the responsibility of bringing the good times back to United in the post-Ferguson era after David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, José Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Erik ten Hag and Amorim.

He was part of one of Ferguson’s greatest teams, which won a Premier League and Champions League double in 2008. In all he won 12 major trophies in 12 years at United including five league titles.

He was in United’s last title-winning team in Ferguson’s final season.

The list of predecessors to Carrick is evidence of the varying attempts United has made to try to return to the summit of English soccer.

It went down the route of the top tier, tried and tested in the form of serial winners Van Gaal and Mourinho, but neither could deliver the Premier League title.

David Moyes was a well-established top-flight manager, while both Ten Hag and Amorim came in as title winners from overseas.

None have reached the standards required.

Solskjaer was an iconic player — part of the club’s DNA — and despite having the affection of the fans ultimately came up short.

“From the moment that I arrived here 20 years ago, I felt the magic of Manchester United. Carrying the responsibility of leading our special football club fills me with immense pride,” Carrick said.

Published – May 23, 2026 05:45 am IST

Steadying influence: Carrick has brought with him a clarity of purpose at United that had been conspicuously absent.
| Photo Credit: AFP