Rio Ferdinand has questioned whether dismissing Manchester United manager Michael Carrick would address the club’s ongoing difficulties, arguing that warnings from former managers Jose Mourinho, Ralf Rangnick and Ruben Amorim point to deeper structural problems at Old Trafford.

The former United defender revisited the trio’s previous comments following the club’s 3-0 Premier League defeat to Bournemouth. The result extended United’s winless streak to eight matches and intensified scrutiny of Carrick’s position, with uncertainty growing over his future as head coach.

However, Ferdinand believes focusing exclusively on the manager risks overlooking wider concerns involving the club’s ownership and football leadership under INEOS. He suggested that the repeated concerns raised by previous managers should prompt questions about whether meaningful changes have been made to the organisation’s football operations.

Speaking on his programme, Rio Ferdinand Presents, he recalled Amorim’s warning that United could find themselves dealing with the same difficulties a year later if the club failed to address its underlying problems.

“Look at when Amorim was here, he said one thing that feels very relevant today, that next year we’ll be here at the same stage with the same problems,” Ferdinand said.

He also pointed to Rangnick’s assessment that United needed far-reaching reform rather than a series of limited adjustments. Ferdinand argued that the fact that several managers had raised similar concerns made their observations difficult to dismiss.

“Three guys there who’ve been in that hotseat, they can’t all be wrong. Has open heart surgery happened at Man Utd? That’s an alarming comment to make. Has it happened? Of course it hasn’t,” he added.

Rangnick, who was appointed interim manager in December 2021 and remained in the role until May 2022, had previously called for a comprehensive restructuring of the club’s football department. In April 2022, he argued that United’s problems were visible and required substantial action rather than superficial changes.

“You don’t even need glasses to see and analyse where the problems are. Now it’s about how do we solve them? It’s not enough to do some minor amendments – cosmetic things. In medicine you would say that this is an operation of the open heart,” Rangnick said at the time.

Amorim expressed similar concerns in November 2024, stressing that United needed to commit to a different footballing direction even if the transition brought short-term difficulties. He warned that delaying decisive action could leave the club facing familiar problems in the following season.

“Or we start now, we risk a little bit, we suffer a little bit and next year we will be better at this point. So we have to risk it a little bit,” Amorim said.

Mourinho has also previously suggested that his time at United was more challenging than outsiders understood. Despite guiding the team to second place in the Premier League during the 2017/18 campaign, he described the achievement as one of the finest of his managerial career, citing difficulties behind the scenes.

“If I tell you, for example, that I consider one of the best jobs of my career was to finish second with Man United in the Premier League, you will say, ‘this guy is crazy. He won 25 titles and he is saying that a second position was one of his best achievements?’” Mourinho said.

He added that people outside the club often lacked an understanding of the circumstances affecting its performance.

Ferdinand’s argument is that replacing Carrick alone may not resolve United’s recurring problems. The club’s response to the latest poor run will therefore raise broader questions about whether its leadership is prepared to pursue the deeper reforms previous managers have advocated.