Lineker tells Fàbregas the United job would be madness. Shearer says the problem is bigger than the manager

Gary Lineker says the Manchester United job is one Cesc Fàbregas would be mad to take, while Alan Shearer says the club’s problems run deeper than the dugout. Two former England strikers, one verdict on the Carrick succession.

The question of who might replace Michael Carrick at Old Trafford has moved from whispers to open debate. Football365 reports that United have won two of their first 11 league games and lost 4-1 at Como, and that Eddie Howe is the name being linked with the post. Two of English football’s best-known voices have now weighed in, and neither is selling the job.

Lineker: a job to avoid

On The Rest Is Football podcast, as Football365 reports, Gary Lineker turned his attention to Fàbregas, the young Como manager. His argument was that Fàbregas faces a big decision if Como keep winning, because a major club will come calling. If United are one of them, Lineker said, taking the job would be madness, and he described the club in bleak terms, as something close to a graveyard for managers. His advice was that Fàbregas should keep building at another leading European club.

It is a pointed take from a man who rarely lets sentiment cloud a football opinion. It is also a take about the job, not the man. Lineker was not questioning Fàbregas’s ability. He was questioning what United would do to it.

Shearer: a structural problem

Alan Shearer, speaking to Betfair in comments carried by Football365, reached a similar destination by a different road. He has sympathy for Carrick but accepts the results are a concern. His central point, as reported, is that the trouble runs through the whole organisation, that recruitment has been poor, and that this is not the coach’s fault.

On Howe, Shearer’s doubt is about fit rather than quality. A manager who wants control, he suggested, may not get it at United. He was also sceptical about Antonio Conte, another name in the conversation. Football365 adds that Shearer agreed the job looks unattractive given how many managers have come and gone.

Where they agree, and where they differ

Read together, the two views are less a clash than a pincer. Lineker’s warning is personal and blunt: do not go. Shearer’s is diagnostic: change the manager and the problems stay. If both are right, the real question is not who replaces Carrick but whether anything changes around him.

The difference lies in emphasis. Lineker’s instinct is to protect the manager from the club. Shearer’s is to put the club on trial, which makes his stance the more uncomfortable one for United’s hierarchy. Recruitment is not a dugout issue, and no appointment fixes it by itself.

Shearer made a related point when he named Hürzeler as a possible Carrick replacement, again with a caveat about fit. Neville, meanwhile, has already set out what he would count as par for Carrick. The pattern across the pundit class is consistent: sympathy for the manager, scepticism about the machine around him.

What to watch

Nothing here is a confirmed appointment, and Howe’s name is a report, not a decision. What is clear is the tone of the debate. If a high-profile name does end up in the dugout, expect these two verdicts to be quoted back at the club, and at him, for a long time.