Hearts Title Winner Eva Olid Poised to Lead Man United Women’s Rebuild | OneFootball

Eva Olid is set to be appointed as Manchester United Women’s new manager, with the 40-year-old Spaniard due to meet the squad on Wednesday as the club finalise her appointment, according to BBC Sport.

That matters because United are making a significant managerial call less than a month before the WSL season kicks off, and the choice of Olid tells you exactly what kind of rebuild the club has committed to.

Olid arrives having delivered Hearts their first-ever SWPL title

Olid joined Hearts in 2021 and spent five years building the Edinburgh club into genuine title contenders in the Scottish Women’s Premier League.

The highlight came last season, when she guided Hearts to their first league championship, finishing two points clear of Rangers, a landmark moment for a club that had previously reached its first domestic final only to lose to Rangers in the 2024 Scottish Cup.

The title itself was won in dramatic fashion. Hearts actually lost their final match of the season to Edinburgh rivals Hibernian, but the title was still theirs because Rangers, in second place, were unable to capitalise elsewhere on the same day. Olid was subsequently named SWPL Manager of the Year.

Her tenure showed a clear upward arc: fourth-place finishes in back-to-back seasons, a fifth-place dip in 2024-25, then the title. That ability to build through difficult years before delivering silverware is precisely the profile Manchester United were looking for.

Before moving to Scotland, Olid had previously worked at Houston Dynamo in the United States. Hearts announced in April that Olid would leave at the end of the season by mutual agreement, despite her having signed an extension through the summer of 2026, making this a planned transition rather than a sudden departure.

On leaving, she said she was proud to depart having achieved her goals and fulfilled her dream of becoming a league champion.

Skinner’s exit created the vacancy, and defined what United wanted next

Marc Skinner left Manchester United Women by mutual consent on Monday, ending a five-year reign that brought the club their first major trophy, the Women’s FA Cup in 2024, a first Women’s Champions League group-stage appearance, and three domestic cup final appearances in total.

But Skinner had raised concerns about a lack of investment in the squad, and United have had a notably quiet summer in the transfer market.

That decision says plenty about where United currently sit. The club has shifted its recruitment approach, targeting younger players on longer deals in pursuit of sustainable success rather than short-term competition for the top four.

Sources at the club made clear that developing players from within was the central criterion for whoever came next. Olid, with a track record of progressive coaching and squad development on a limited budget, fits that brief directly.

As She Kicks has covered, the pressures that built around Skinner’s tenure made this kind of reset feel inevitable.

United’s new direction means Olid inherits a squad in transition

The squad Olid walks into is one in the middle of a deliberate reshape. United’s summer recruitment activity has reflected the club’s youth-first philosophy, and the new manager will need to bed that group in quickly.

Fine in principle, but the harder question is how fast a coach making her WSL debut can translate her SWPL methods to a division where the margins, and the expectations, are considerably higher.

United open the 2026-27 WSL season away at London City Lionesses on 4 September. The fixture list will not wait for anyone to settle in.