Mauricio Pochettino appears closer than ever to taking over at Manchester United, with the club weighing up whether Michael Carrick could be removed this week. That decision has not yet been finalised, but the direction of travel is clear.<\/p>\n
This is not a sudden courtship. United have been connected with Pochettino for well over a decade, first when they chose Louis van Gaal instead of the Argentine, who went on to join Tottenham Hotspur. Since then, the links have resurfaced repeatedly, including in 2016, 2018 and 2021, whenever the manager\u2019s seat at Old Trafford became unsettled.<\/p>\n
Yet on each of those occasions, Pochettino was tied to another job. He was at Tottenham and later at Paris Saint-Germain, which meant United never had an open lane to move for him. Even so, the club passed on him again more recently, twice in fact.<\/p>\n
David Ornstein said on The Athletic FC podcast this week that Pochettino was in the \u201cfinal two\u201d in May 2022 before United appointed Erik ten Hag after his work at Ajax. By then, Pochettino was departing PSG after 18 months that brought three trophies but ended badly. United then moved away from him again in 2024.<\/p>\n
That summer, Pochettino was available after leaving Chelsea by mutual consent at the end of a 2023-24 campaign marked by tension with the sporting hierarchy at Stamford Bridge. United were reviewing options after Ten Hag\u2019s impact fell short of expectations, and Pochettino was among the candidates they spoke to before deciding to keep the Dutchman.<\/p>\n
He soon took charge of U.S. Soccer, while Ruben Amorim, also considered that summer, later replaced Ten Hag after the dismissal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not hear the best feedback from how it went on that occasion,\u201d Ornstein said. \u201cI was told they were a little underwhelmed regarding his coaching, his hunger, his work rate. I don\u2019t know all of the factors, but that sort of gist.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly, they didn\u2019t think that highly of him because they ended up taking [Thomas] Tuchel and [Roberto] De Zerbi to the \u2018last two,\u2019 and ultimately gave Ten Hag a new contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
If that was the view then, it appears to have shifted now. United could have taken him in the summer of 2026, when he was briefly available after the World Cup, but instead promoted Carrick from interim to permanent manager following a strong finish to 2025-26.<\/p>\n
There are still other options on the market, but United seem prepared to pay to free Pochettino and his staff from their U.S. Soccer contracts rather than turn to a free agent such as Antonio Conte or Julian Nagelsmann. Jason Wilcox, now sporting director, had only recently moved into the technical director role in spring 2024 and was impressed that Ten Hag accepted his tactical advice for the FA Cup final win over Manchester City. Results later changed the picture.<\/p>\n
Pochettino, meanwhile, may also be in a different place after his Chelsea spell. If United do move for him, the structure around him and his remit would almost certainly need to be clear before any appointment is completed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United\u2019s long pursuit of Pochettino has resurfaced, with another managerial change now under discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[1836,59,182],"class_list":["post-22400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}