Marc Skinner may have been a Marmite manager but Manchester United’s budget was spread thin | Tom Garry

“If we want to compete at this later stage, we’ve seen what we’ve got to do, as a club. It’s our choice now, isn’t it? We have to look at what we seriously want to achieve … It takes, sometimes, a punch in the face to wake up.”

Those were the words of the Manchester United head coach Marc Skinner after his side went out of the Women’s Champions League with elimination by Bayern Munich in April. Just over four months later, the bruise from that punch has faded, but so, it would seem, have the club’s ambitions to compete in the transfer market, and Skinner has decided not to get into the ring for another round.

The 43-year-old wanted that run to the quarter-finals to trigger further investment in the starting team. The club, though, feel that the levels of spending in the transfer market are unsustainable and therefore want to focus on developing young, homegrown talent. Once that juxtaposition was firmly established this summer, it was inevitable that Skinner and United were likely to part company, as they did on Monday, to end his five years in charge.

United’s Marmite manager, Skinner certainly divided opinion in the WSL. He was the league’s longest-serving manager by a distance, but arguably also the most heavily maligned coach online. In the sport, though, there are coaches who admire the job he did on – according to the most recent set of WSL clubs’ financial accounts – a little over a third of the playing budget of Chelsea and around half that of Arsenal’s.

For members of the media, Skinner’s press conferences will probably be one of the most memorable aspects of his tenure, unique because of the extensive length of the former Birmingham and Orlando head coach’s answers. For example, before the 2025 Women’s FA Cup final, one of his answers was 1,000 words long.

To some, his determination to provide long, considered responses was a sign of his thoughtfulness and showed an admirable desire to be transparent. To others, his drawn-out answers demonstrated an inability to be concise and this communication problem dogged his relationship with the fans throughout much of his tenure. Often, unintentionally, his words would irritate sections of the fanbase. In 2025, one former United player privately described Skinner as a “great bloke, but he goes on a bit” and it is fair to say not every player liked his team-talk style, while others enjoyed his passion.

On the pitch, the 2022-23 season, Skinner’s second, was the club’s strongest as they finished second in the table, boosted by a robust defensive record, conceding 12 times in 22 games, and they came within a whisker of winning the title. Then there was the comparatively low moment of languishing down in fifth in the 2024-25 campaign, counteracted by winning 2025’s Women’s FA Cup, lifting United’s first major women’s trophy.

Yet, whether you loved him or loathed him at Leigh Sports Village, Skinner overachieved at United on a purely pound-for-pound basis, reaching four domestic cup finals – including three consecutive Women’s FA Cup finals – despite typically operating on a mid-table budget for much of his incumbency. He was certainly not every player’s cup of tea, and there will be lessons he will need to learn from the highs and lows of his five years at the club, but now that both of the coaches who have managed United’s women in the modern era have wanted to leave, in part, because of funding issues, there are questions for the club’s hierarchy to answer.

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In the 2024-25 season, of the eight WSL clubs to publish their wage bills via Companies House, United’s ranked fourth for expenditure, and it was a similar story in 2023-24. For next season, they will operate on a far smaller wage bill than the big-spending independent club London City Lionesses and there are understood to be fears held among some staff at United that they are soon likely to be outbid for players’ wages by Tottenham too.

The club embarked on new direction this summer, establishing a long-term aim to sustainably succeed with young homegrown players and play exciting football in line with what they believe are the traditions of the club and their culture. Yet that seems to be at odds with the targets outlined during the 2024-25 season when their “Project 150” included a “Mission 1” for the women to win a first WSL title by the club’s 150th anniversary in 2028.

Whoever comes in as the club’s head coach – and an appointment is likely to happen quickly, with background checks having already been carried out on candidates – they will need to be prepared to work with youngsters and develop them rather than trying to sign established, international stars. They will also have to accept that key first-team players – such as Melvine Malard who was sold to Chelsea this summer – may well be poached by a rival.