Pochettino opens door to United job
⮞paris St-germain manager interested in ⮞interim to replace sacked Solskjaer summer move if he leaves French side who is given £7.5m in compensation handed task of leading team in vital Champions League match in Spain
Mauricio Pochettino would be open to taking over as Manchester United manager next summer following Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s sacking, should he leave Paris St-germain.
After finally dismissing Solskjaer yesterday morning in the wake of a wretched 4-1 defeat at Watford, United are looking to bring in an interim manager until the end of the season before appointing a permanent replacement.
Michael Carrick, one of Solskjaer’s assistants, has been placed in temporary charge ahead of tomorrow’s crucial Champions League clash against Villarreal in Spain.
United are hoping Carrick and the remaining coaching staff can buy them time as they search for another stop-gap to halt their alarming slide and get them through the remaining six months of the season, with the leading candidates for a permanent post currently in jobs.
Darren Fletcher, the technical director who was considered for the caretaker position, is expected to play an important role in the coming weeks, too.
Pochettino has been coveted previously by the Old Trafford hierarchy but, while United may need some convincing that the former Spurs coach is the outstanding choice to take over depending on how this season unfolds at PSG, there is a belief he would be interested if he became available down the line.
Although PSG are 11 points clear at the top of Ligue 1, Pochettino is under pressure to deliver the Champions League this season – and it remains to be seen if the French club stand by him if he falls short.
Pochettino is contracted to PSG until 2023, but the French club allowed Carlo Ancelotti to leave for Real Madrid in 2013 when he had a year left on his contract. The Argentine, 49, is known to favour longterm projects and has a strong track record of giving youth its chance.
Erik ten Hag, the Ajax coach, Brendan Rodgers, of Leicester City,
and Zinedine Zidane, who won three successive Champions Leagues at Real Madrid and is out of work, are among some of the other names who have been linked with the United job.
Ten Hag guided Ajax to the Champions League semifinals in 2019, when they lost to Pochettino’s Spurs, and has forged a reputa
tion for attacking football and cultivating young talent en route to two Eredivisie titles in the past four seasons. United’s more immediate concern is to get through another challenging week after Solskjaer’s near three-year reign was brought to an end during a cordial meeting between the Norwegian and executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward ⮞carrick
shortly after 9am at the club’s Carrington training complex. His exit was confirmed 90 minutes later.
Solskjaer – who said his goodbyes to players and staff and even carried out a farewell interview with the club’s official television station before eventually leaving in his black Range Rover at 2.30pm and stopping to hug a United fan – will receive a compensation package worth around £7.5 million, only four months after signing a three-year contract with the club.
In an unusual move that was viewed as an acceptance that the preferred candidates to succeed Sol
skjaer are unavailable, United announced that they would “[look] to appoint an interim manager to the end of the season” and that, until then, Carrick will “take charge of the team for forthcoming games”.
With Premier League leaders Chelsea to face at Stamford Bridge on Sunday after the Villarreal game, United are hoping Carrick, their former midfielder, can stop the rot, with the club having lost seven of their past 13 matches and shipped 19 goals in their past seven outings.
No timescale has been put on how long Carrick is expected to stay in
charge. Mike Phelan, who served as Solskjaer’s No2, and Kieran Mckenna, the first-team coach, have also been kept on.
Senior sources at Old Trafford claimed the process of recruiting an interim manager only commenced yesterday afternoon and, at first look, the pool of viable candidates appears quite thin.
Laurent Blanc, the former Bordeaux, PSG and France coach who played for United between 2001 and 2003, has been touted as one option although it is thought he has reservations about an interim role. The 56-year-old, who has not managed in Europe since 2016, is the head coach of Qatari club Al-rayyan.
Ralf Rangnick, the 63-year-old former Leipzig and Schalke coach who is head of sports and development at Lokomotiv Moscow in Russia, continues to be linked. However, a close associate of Rangnick distanced himself from the interim role yesterday, as did the Derby manager and former United striker Wayne Rooney.
The names of Ruben Amorim, the 36-year-old coach of Sporting Lisbon, and Sevilla coach Julen Lopetegui have also been put forward as potential options.
Woodward arrived at United’s Carrington base around 9am yesterday. He had driven back from London in the early hours following talks with co-chairman Joel Glazer in the wake of the Watford capitulation, during which it was agreed there was a “clear” need for change. It was not long after United’s flight touched down in Manchester from Luton Airport that Solskjaer’s reign was over.
Solskjaer entered the training ground around the same time before heading into a meeting with Woodward that was said by sources to be very different in mood to the conversations he had with David Moyes, Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho when they were sacked. The Norwegian then addressed the players, many of whom issued messages of thanks and support on social media.
Some staff struggled to hold back the tears as Solskjaer said his goodbyes and the outgoing manager cut an emotional figure during a 12-minute interview with MUTV in which he expressed confidence that he had “laid the foundations” for his successor, whom he hopes will deliver the league title next season. “I wanted us to take the next step to challenge for the league, to win trophies… but unfortunately I couldn’t get the results we needed and it’s time for me to step aside,” he said.
Solskjaer was granted a stay of execution in the wake of the 5-0 humiliation at home to Liverpool last month. But after a win at Spurs was followed by a fortuitous 2-2 draw against Atalanta in the Champions League and a comprehensive 2-0 dismantling by Manchester City, the Watford collapse proved the final straw.
In a statement, United said the team’s slump would “not obscure” the work Solskjaer – scorer of United’s stoppage-time winning goal in their famous, last-gasp Champions League final win over Bayern Munich in 1999 that completed a historic treble – had done to rebuild the club in the wake of Mourinho’s sacking in December 2018.
“Ole will always be a legend at Manchester United and it is with regret that we have reached this difficult decision,” the club said.
“While the past few weeks have been disappointing, they should not obscure all the work he has done over the past three years to rebuild the foundations for long-term success.
“His place in the club’s history will always be secure, not just for his story as a player, but as a great man and a manager who gave us many great moments.”
‘Ole will always be a legend at Old Trafford and it is with regret that we reached the decision’