Inside Man Utd’s training hub after £50m upgrade

A home from home

We were given a tour of the complex by Patrick Campbell from project architects Foster + Partners and United’s Head of Performance, Sam Erith. From what they said, it became apparent that the project had three main objectives . 

The first was to make Carrington a more appealing place for the players to spend time: a comfortable, luxurious and enjoyable “home from home”. Erith told TGG that there was “a trend in elite sport around the world” for players to spend longer at their training centres and that this was United’s aim too. 

By having them on site for longer, the club can ensure that the players eat, train, rest and rehab properly, with everything they need under one roof. And by spending more time together, the hope is that the players can develop strong team spirit and togetherness.

Diogo Dalot and Tom Heaton – part of a new six-man leadership team at the club, along with captain Bruno Fernandes, Harry Maguire, Lisandro Martinez and Noussair Mozraoui – said this was a place everyone will be happy to spend time.

“As much time as we can spend here, I think it would be the best, because ultimately we are talking about our second home – where we spend the most time after our personal homes with our families,” Dalot said. “You should be able to feel good once you come in. Logistically it is going to be easier because everything is in one place. Now you feel at home.”

Heaton, who will be speaking at our TGG Live Conference in October, added: “We’re here every day, seven days a week through a whole season. What you want is an area that can give you real togetherness as a group.”

There are open-plan spaces throughout the complex, where players and staff can mingle and have informal chats, and Roche said this was something Ferguson had always emphasised.

“That was the thing Sir Alex always said to me – that Manchester United is like a family and you knew everybody,” she said. “He thought that was achievable now with the way everything is set up.”

The ground floor of the complex is dedicated to performance (which we’ll talk about more later), while the first floor is for nutrition and relaxation. The whole building is flooded with natural light and has a golden hue, thanks to the combination of light and wooden panelling. This makes it a much more pleasant place to be than the dark labyrinth of rooms that the players described previously.

Extra windows have been installed around the exterior of the building, as well as a number roof lights (because the building is 40m wide, you couldn’t get light in the middle without overhead glass).

The main lounge is the centrepiece of the first floor and has a continuous glass facade and covered balcony that overlooks the training pitches. Inside, the player’s dining area houses a new “state-of-the-art” kitchen run by Head Performance Chef Will Carvalho, who recently joined from Brighton and popped out to say hello to us.

 Off to the sides are an F1 simulator room and a barber’s. There are ‘soft’ areas for the players to relax and chat (reminiscent of St George’s Park) and a padel court will soon open in the space the women’s team have occupied while building work was undertaken. 

World-class performance facilities

A second objective of the rebuild was to improve the ‘player journey’ within the training complex. As new facilities were added following the original opening in 2000, the building became a bit “higgledy piggledy”, in the words of Roche. Now players can move through the facility in a coherent way that mimics the sequences of their training day.

The players  arrive in their own separate entrance on the south side and there is an “effortless journey from car park to changing rooms”. These refurbished changing rooms are impressive, with individual spaces for each first-team player that are adorned with their name and squad number. A screen is mounted on the wall of each space, showing the player’s individual schedule for the day. 

There is an adjacent shower area featuring ice baths.

The third major objective of the rebuild was to incorporate world-class tech and facilities. The basement was dug out for the hydro area, which features a main swimming pool, hot and cold plunge pools and an underwater treadmill that can be raised to floor level. This means players can walk on, rather than having to step, and analysis of their walking and running can be done on an adjacent screen. 

The steam room and sauna have also been “transformed.” 

There’s a new altitude training room, kitted out with stationary bikes, which United say is “one of the largest of its kind”, and a “passive recovery room”, featuring individual sleeping pods with audio and visual connections, dry floatation tanks (specialised beds that simulate the experience of floating in water without getting wet) and hyperbaric oxygen chambers. 

There are also state-of-the-art cryotherapy chambers. 

The clinical diagnostic room houses a CT scanner, DEXA scanner and MRI scanner. The analysis room is like a mini cinema, with Italian leather seats and a standing gantry at the back for Ruben Amorim and his coaches to watch on. There is a new media room and open plan offices for backroom staff including the analysts, who are currently headed up by Paul Brand. 

All the department heads (many of whom have now left or about to leave, like Brand) had an input into the refit, as did the players. Erith, who arrived in September 2024 as Interim Head of Performance before getting the job on a permanent basis, has been a key advisor.

Erith previously worked for Manchester City (whose training complex has been among the best in the game for several seasons) and Madison Square Garden Group.

“Sam was a really important stakeholder,” Roche said. “He’s worked in the US and for Manchester City and straight away we needed him to tell us how the performance side works. We took a lot of input as we went along and validated it.”

Leicester City’s Seagrave training complex, which opened in 2020, was an inspiration for United’s refit, as was the LA Rams’ Woodland Hills facility. In time, United expect 500 of their 700 staff to be based at Carrington, with the other 200 spread between Old Trafford and London.

A centrepiece of the new complex is a grand spiral staircase, which ascends into an atrium of light and has walls adorned with replicas of the club’s major trophies. Campbell said the idea was to give the players “a reminder of what they are aspiring to” and this has been the balance at United since Ferguson departed – being inspired but not weighed down by the past.

Heaton is well placed to assess the transformation of the site, having come through the ranks as a youth player and a young pro under Ferguson before returning to the club in 2021, 11 years after he had left for Cardiff City. 

“We moved here (to Carrington) in 2000 and I started full time in 2001/2,” he remembered. “I’d do a little bit of day release on a Monday and was still in school. It was still a brand new building and it felt like a big marker, a pivotal moment for the club. 

“They were incredible facilities but, as time goes on and the game evolves, it wasn’t quite up with what we wanted. Walking back through the door, having been out for a year (while building work was going on), we’ve all been blown away by the opportunity this will provide in terms of a world-class facility.

“Of course people make a building, players on the pitch bring performances and results, but what that can bring you in terms of providing the help and stability for that performance, I think everyone is excited.”