Next Man Utd Manager Odds: Favourite Darren Fletcher is the devil you know

Manchester United have parted ways with head coach Ruben Amorim. With the outgoing former Sporting CP coach leaving the Red Devils in sixth place, the job is an attractive one. Join us here at Betfred Insights as we assess the field ahead of the appointment of the next Old Trafford boss.

Darren Fletcher is the man of the moment, with the United under-18s manager stepping into the dugout for the upcoming visit of Burnley on Wednesday night. Read on to find out more on his chances of becoming the next permanent Manchester United manager.

United have been in this position before. Sack a manager midway through a crumbling season and appoint a club legend on an interim basis to steer the ship until a permanent appointment can be made. 

That season, the 2018-19 campaign, saw Nou Camp hero Ole Gunnar Solskjaer replace the trophy-winning, Luke Shaw-hating whirlwind of despair that is Jose Mourinho. Solskjaer’s transformative interim stint became a less-successful permanent one. But most Reds would agree that the mood and the fast, counter-attacking style comprised one of the club’s brighter post-Fergie periods.

When Erik ten Hag was sacked in October 2024, another legendary United figure took temporary charge. Ruud van Nistelrooy scored 150 goals in 219 games for the club. His appointment as caretaker manager was more to do with being one of Ten Hag’s assistants, the advantage of proximity. Ruud oversaw four wins and a draw before handing the reins to Amorim. 

United were seemingly drawing a line; you need more than a legendary name to manage this club. 

What does this mean for Fletcher? The midfield dynamo played 342 games for the Old Trafford side. Initially maligned by a fanbase spoiled by the genius of Paul Scholes and the box-to-box rage of Roy Keane, Fletcher was a slow-burner. But he became Sir Alex Ferguson’s trusted midfield lieutenant and, when his fellow Scot retired, an important continuity link during the uneasy transition.

Fletcher must navigate another uneasy transition here. The 41-year-old has never managed a game of senior football. His experience off the pitch has come with the under-16 and under-18 squads, the latter of which he currently manages. Fletcher has also served as a first team coach, technical director and in a broader “key role in the football leadership team”.

What this seems to suggest is that Fletcher is highly-rated within the club, but nobody is quite sure how to best utilise his skills. Those skills will now be deployed to try and steady a run of results that has seen United win one, draw three and lose one of their last five games. 

Fletcher leads the way in the betting to take the role permanently. The thinking being that Ineos might prefer to appoint a head coach already steeped in their way of doing things. The Scotsman lacks managerial experience, but he has been involved in the United structure at almost every level on the footballing side. Playing, coaching the youth sides and first team, overseeing the sporting side entirely as technical director. No other candidate has that level of United-specific experience and knowledge.

Reports suggest United are looking for Fletcher to oversee Wednesday’s trip to Burnley and probably the FA Cup tie with Brighton & Hove Albion at the weekend, before appointing an interim manager until the end of the season. That would appear to take Fletcher out of the running and condemn him to a Ruud-like, seat-warming exercise.

But perhaps Fletcher will get a tune out of a talented but mismatched squad. It is hard not to look back at the Ten Hag-Ruud-Amorim transition and wonder whether the Dutchman should have been given longer. 

Amorim’s preference was always to come in at the end of the campaign. But by then his reputation was tarnished by a 15th-placed finish and a poor defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League final. Would appointing the Portuguese coach in the summer, allowing a clean slate, have improved things? We will never know.

So perhaps United will choose not to replace caretaker Fletcher with an interim manager followed by a permanent head coach. Maybe the club legend will be allowed to steer the ship until the summer. Maybe, depending on his performance in the league and FA Cup, Fletcher will be given the keys to the kingdom on a permanent basis. Because looking back, the Solskjaer experiment was better than much of what followed. If you fancy Fletcher to follow in Ole's footsteps as permanent boss, it's 13/8.

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