As the latest Manchester United embarrassment meanders towards an inevitable conclusion, Sir Jim Ratcliffe can comfort himself in the knowledge that he has got some things right.

In an interview with BBC Sport last year, Ratcliffe admitted: “I recognise I’m unpopular at the moment. I’m prepared to be and can deal with being unpopular for a period of time.”

So far, so good. When you run a football club as badly as INEOS have done, thick skin is essential.

“Manchester United has come off the rails and we need to get it back on the rails,” Ratcliffe continued. Again, all correct for now.

“I believe that what we’re doing will put it back on the rails and we’ll finish up being where Liverpool or Real Madrid are today.”

Try not to laugh. Fast forward a year and United are spending the November international break in the relegation zone. It is their lowest position in the league after ten matches for 40 years.

It was INEOS who put forward Mission 21, the plan to deliver United a 21st league title by 2028 to mark the club’s 150th anniversary. Would winning the Championship count?

United fans need not worry, though. The good news is that the club is in safe hands. In 2024, Ratcliffe declared: “We need to populate all the key roles with people who are best in class. 10-out-of-10s.”

Step forward Omar Berrada, chief executive, and director of football Jason Wilcox. The brains trust are in Monaco for a meeting with Ratcliffe on Wednesday to discuss the club’s strategy and more specifically the future of Michael Carrick.

Except we already know the outcome because it leaked two days earlier. Berrada and Wilcox will recommend that Carrick is sacked as United embark on a mid-season manager search for the third year in a row.

For all this shambolic process has been entirely in keeping with how the club’s hierarchy operate, it is a shameful way to treat Carrick.

Sacking him is not the wrong decision. United have one league win all season and are a dream to play against. The squad is not good enough but results have still been abysmal under Carrick, who has showed no sign of turning things around.

However, that does not excuse how the situation has been handled. The 45-year-old made 464 appearances for the club. He won five Premier League titles at Old Trafford. While the fans have rightly aimed their fury at the players and the board in recent weeks, Carrick has retained their support.

And yet the incompetence of United’s leadership meant that he spent Tuesday at the club’s training ground, pretending it was business as usual despite knowing he would imminently be sacked.

The delay is said to be because Wilcox and Berrada want to inform Carrick face-to-face, but only after they consulted with Ratcliffe. That, of course, can only be done in person in Monaco and after waiting a couple of days for good measure. Add video calls to the list of things beyond this trio.

It is a laughable attempt at claiming to do things the right way, with the sacking decision effectively having already been made public.

To undermine that stance further, United are in talks with Mauricio Pochettino. Discussions are believed to be in the final stages and an agreement is close. All while Carrick remains in charge and shuffles papers at the training ground.

Nor is it any great surprise. Ratcliffe oversaw the Erik ten Hag debacle in 2024, when the club were set to sack the Dutchman and spoke to several replacements, only to then panic and give him a contract extension. Ten Hag was sacked a few months later.

Dan Ashworth stuck his head in for five months to the cost of £4.1million. It took 16 months to work out Sir Dave Brailsford knew nothing about football. Wilcox was involved in the appointment of back-three zealot Ruben Amorim and then forcefully suggested to the manager he might want to not play a back-three. Amorim was gone days later.

Back to Ratcliffe and his prophetic words. “They made a complete cock-up of it, shocking really,” he told The Times last year, when asked about the club’s previous leadership under the Glazers.

“The first management group, they thought they understood and wanted to get involved in buying footballers but they didn’t have the knowledge to buy footballers. They went in the marketplace, spraying money around and it was just random, wasn’t it?”

Fortunately Ratcliffe had the “best in class” to correct that. Wilcox oversaw the summer window and had the clever plan of caring about only one position. No more randomness. This squad would be rebuilt in instalments, starting in midfield.

Forget that the defence was in dire need of reinforcements. Or that the midfield overhaul did not involve signing an elite midfielder. Or that no serious club has ever operated in that way.

That was the support Carrick was given, having led United back into the Champions League. Hopefully Pochettino will have his say in the defenders that arrive next summer. Perhaps the next manager after him will be allowed a forward signing or two.

It is absurd that Wilcox will come away from the Monaco summit with another manager gone and his job still intact. But then Ratcliffe has backed himself into a corner, having stuck with Wilcox through all the mistakes of the past two years.

Sack Wilcox and admit a failure of leadership in putting the wrong man in place? Or keep Wilcox and in doing so admit the “best in class” soundbite was just that, confirming this is a rudderless ship with no hope of success under the current leadership?

For now, it will be the easy decision. Remove another manager and start the cycle again. From Ratcliffe at the top to Wilcox and Berrada below him, all the way down to the players on the pitch, United have individuals out of their depth at every level.

Carrick has clearly not delivered this season either but the disrespect in the final hours of his reign is further evidence that he is better off out of this mess.