Michael Carrick signed a contract until 2028 in May 2026, five months after taking interim charge at Manchester United and finishing the season third in the Premier League. He's the latest former player to be handed the job, and anyone checking the Hull vs Man U odds will be looking at a side shaped by a man who made 464 appearances in a United shirt.
United have gone back to their own more often than most clubs, usually at moments when the dressing room needed a familiar voice. Some of those spells lasted a matter of weeks, others ran for years, and the outcomes have been very different.
In this article, we look at five former United players who returned to manage the club, and how each of them got on.
Wilf McGuinness
McGuinness replaced Sir Matt Busby in June 1969, having come through as one of the Busby Babes before a broken leg ended his playing career. He took United to three cup semi-finals, one in the FA Cup and two in the League Cup, and finished eighth in the First Division in his first season. A poor start to 1970-71 cost him his job that December, and Busby came back to take the team through to the end of the campaign.
Ryan Giggs
Giggs made 963 appearances as a United player, and he was put in temporary charge for the final four matches of 2013-14 after David Moyes was sacked. He started with a 4-0 win over Norwich City and followed it with a 3-1 victory against Hull City, a match in which he handed a start to teenager James Wilson, who scored twice. Defeat at Sunderland and a draw with Southampton left him with two wins from four before Louis van Gaal took over.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
Solskjaer made 366 appearances for United as a player, and returned in December 2018 as caretaker following Jose Mourinho's dismissal, winning his first eight games in charge, and 14 of his first 19 before the job was made permanent in March 2019.
He helped United overturn a 2-0 home defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of the Champions League by winning 3-1 in Paris. They became the first side in the history of the competition to advance after losing the first leg at home by two goals or more. They went through to the quarter-final.
Ruud van Nistelrooy
Van Nistelrooy stepped up from his role as assistant when Erik ten Hag was sacked in October 2024, and he stayed unbeaten across four matches, winning three and drawing at home with Chelsea. He beat Leicester City twice in that run, once in the EFL Cup and then 3-0 in the league in his final game in charge. Ruben Amorim opted not to keep him on, and Leicester appointed him as their manager 20 days later.
Michael Carrick
Carrick had already taken caretaker charge of three matches in November 2021, between Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick, winning 2-0 at Villarreal and 3-2 against Arsenal. He spent close to three years at Middlesbrough before returning to Old Trafford in January 2026 after Amorim's exit, and he won 11 of his first 16 games to secure third place and Champions League football. United handed him a deal until 2028 in May.
The record of former players in the United dugout is mixed, with McGuinness and Solskjaer both leaving under pressure while Van Nistelrooy and Carrick lifted results quickly. Supporters following the Prem odds will see United back among the sides expected to compete, and Carrick now has two seasons to prove that finish was no one-off.
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