Well intentioned though they might have been, there was a deadening familiarity about Harry Maguire’s soundbites after Sunday’s latest Old Trafford catastrophe, amplifying a sense of Manchester United being stuck in a godforsaken failure loop. Maguire’s ‘look in the mirror’ and ‘take accountability’ and ‘wearing this shirt’ were the kind of words he and Luke Shaw have been trotting out for years. It’s white noise, now. None of this stuff makes the blindest difference.But it was by the law of unintended consequences that Maguire revealed how Michael Carrick, a nice guy in a fix, simply doesn’t exude the authority required to command United. ‘Michael turned our season on its head last season,’ the defender observed after the 3-0 defeat by Bournemouth. Never, in the days when United were a force in football, would the manager be described as ‘Alex’ or, decades earlier, ‘Matt’. Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Matt Busby simply wouldn’t tolerate that kind of familiarity.Judging by the names emerging as possible next inheritors of this most poisoned chalice – Eddie Howe and Julian Nagelsmann – there is no appreciation that monumental authority, self-assurance and powers of persuasion are required here, and that this is not just another turn in the annual game of managerial swings and roundabouts.United require a manager capable of instilling calm in the madhouse, standards where they are missing, and fashioning an environment in which no one would dare contemplate acts of vicious mutiny from the likes of Bruno Fernandes. The less widely appreciated point is that United require a manager capable of inspiring the kind of players the club need to join this ship. The words of Harry Maguire (above) in support of Michael Carrick gave away a familiarity between players and manager that Sir Alex Ferguson, for example, would never have tolerated The next manager must be able to dazzle and impress targets as well as have authority within the Old Trafford dressing room. Carlo Ancelotti, a stellar competitor, fits the billUnited have cut player salaries hard within an extremely constricted budget under Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos and the name of Manchester United, starved of the biggest trophies for so long domestically and on the European stage, no longer carries the old cachet. The next manager must be able to dazzle and impress targets. With the greatest respect, Howe and Nagelsmann just won’t do.There has been a sense for weeks now that Carlo Ancelotti is the individual United have needed all along. A stellar competitor who has lifted five Champions League trophies and league titles in five countries, but who has ridden the rollercoaster for long enough to brush off the kind of vicissitudes which have destroyed so many at United.He does not emit a lot of visible heat or light. There’s little of the rage from him in the technical area we see in Jose Mourinho, whose Real Madrid side’s victory in Sunday’s El Clasico led some to suggest he still has what United need. But the most combustible players certainly know who’s boss when Ancelotti’s around.Zlatan Ibrahimovic tells of the ‘Ancelotti eyebrow’, which put in an appearance on a bitterly cold night at Evian, during the player and coach’s time together at Paris Saint-Germain. As Ibrahimovic tells it, the pitch was terrible and PSG were not playing well. ‘At half-time, you always know when something is going on because that one eyebrow goes up. As I sat down I thought, “Now he’s angry”. ‘There was a box in front of him and from nowhere he kicked it and it flew through the air and hit me on the head. “Jesus,” I thought. “Now he’s really angry”.’Ibrahimovic adored Ancelotti. So did David Beckham, another who knows, from their time together at PSG, that the Italian can explode at times. ‘Scary,’ he called it. Ancelotti with Zlatan Ibrahimovic in their PSG days. The Swedish striker was full of admiration for his manager Does Eddie Howe really have the charisma or clout of five-time Champions League winner Ancelotti?A book discussing the Italian’s methods, which Ancelotti co-wrote with Mike Forde, his former sporting director at Chelsea, was entitled Quiet Leadership and in his preface he referenced Vito Corleone and The Godfather.‘When you watch Corleone, do you see a weak quiet man?’ he wrote. ‘Or do you see a calm powerful man, in charge of his situation? ‘My approach is born of the idea that a leader should not need to rant and rave or rule with an iron fist, but rather that their power should be implicit. It should be crystal clear who is in charge, and their authority must result from respect and trust, rather than fear.’At Chelsea, he flourished in the face of bedlam. Roman Abramovich, the owner, suggested Ancelotti favoured English players, demanded he be ‘tougher’ with the dressing room and, on one occasion, summoned the manager to his London apartment for a ‘dressing down’ after a 6-0 victory against West Bromwich Albion. He shrugged all this off.When Abramovich demanded that Ancelotti ‘find a playing identity for the team’ he put Michael Essien in the playmaker role, to immense effect, and took the team to a Premier League and FA Cup Double in 2009-10. ‘He brought the best out of us and made us feel 10-feet tall,’ John Terry said of Ancelotti. ‘You know his training is excellent because he’s coached the best teams in the world – but it was the personal touches which lived with me.’ Ancelotti is coach of the Brazil team, of course, and it would be costly to extract him from that post, though there was always a sense with him of unfinished business in the Premier League. He was disappointed when Abramovich sacked him after two years and coveted the Liverpool job which Jurgen Klopp got instead. Ancelotti led Chelsea to a Premier League and FA Cup Double in 2009-10 despite the meddling of Roman Abramovich Ancelotti is coach of the Brazil team but there is a sense with him of unfinished business in the Premier LeagueThe prospect of helicoptering around Howe and Nagelsmann, who would both be receptive to United, or Antonio Conte, whose temper would make him a disaster at the club, feels rather like Groundhog Day – taking United back to the dither of 2024, when they stuck with Erik ten Hag, despite the availability of the proven, far better Thomas Tuchel, whom they’d actually interviewed at that time. Ancelotti or Howe to get a tune out of an imbalanced squad that has been patched up with cheaper options and, given the limited money available in January, will be little improved on? It’s obviously no contest.In Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s time as manager from 2018, assistant manager Mike Phelan used to shout the word ‘standards’ down the corridors at the training ground and that’s what United need restoring again now. More immediately come fixtures against Chelsea, Roma, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Sporting Lisbon and Brentford. It will require no little personality and authority to deal with that lot.