Mauricio Pochettino Agrees to Take Over at Manchester United as Head Coach

The breaking news from Carrington is that Manchester United have reached a verbal agreement with Mauricio Pochettino to become their next head coach. Chief Executive Omar Berrada and Director of Football Jason Wilcox are in Monaco to meet co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

It’s understood United do want to move quickly if they make that decision to part ways with Carrick, who has been in charge since January. He, of course, led the club to the Champions League, but they are in the relegation zone this season going into the international break.

With Pochettino, we also understand there are still details to be sorted out with his camp, but United are pretty confident that they aren’t going to have any issues. And there are similar feelings from Pochettino’s camp as well.

Talks are also expected to accelerate with the US Soccer Federation around Pochettino’s contract, which he signed in the summer, as was reported yesterday, to buy him out of that contract.

It’s just over £7 million, but we’re expecting that fee to be a bit higher if United do pursue his backroom staff, which again seems very likely. Also at the centre of that discussion with the USSF will be the logistics around Pochettino and his upcoming schedule, with the US having two games against Haiti on Saturday and Tuesday.

So when he can take charge, if they do try to get Pochettino here to Carrington, is still to be sorted. But as I said, a verbal agreement in principle has been reached between Manchester United and Mauricio Pochettino to become the club’s next head coach.

Carrick Takes Training as His Replacement Is Lined Up.

Michael Carrick took training again today, yet another day in limbo for him. It is quite a remarkable situation that news of this agreement is emerging whilst he’s very much still in his post. On the outside, it doesn’t look great, does it?

I think there will be a lack of empathy towards the hierarchy in this instance, because Michael Carrick has been taking training for the last two days, with the players who aren’t away on international duty.

But if you look at the other side of things, Manchester United have had to have a plan over the last few weeks, of course, if they were to make a change in their head coach position. This goes back to those back-to-back defeats against Como and Bournemouth, where clearly they were already considering a change.

TNNews Sports reported that they were already debating and considering making a change. They gave Michael Carrick three more games to see if they could turn around that form. It was one loss, one win and one draw against Aston Villa.

So quite clearly it was not to the standard the hierarchy wants, but also where United needed to be. And again, they find themselves in the relegation zone.

And look, the feeling I get around this is that there’s probably some regret that private discussions have come out in the public and in the media around who they are pursuing, which quite clearly has been Mauricio Pochettino in the last few days, to potentially become their next head coach.

I think there is some empathy towards Michael Carrick from those at the club that this has come out. But of course, until this process is done, I do think it’s a fact that no final decision has been made. We have evidence of that because Jason Wilcox, the director of football, and CEO Omar Berrada are both in Monaco with Sir Jim Ratcliffe to really confirm these next steps.

So it is very unfortunate for Michael Carrick, someone who represented this club as a player for 11 years. He has stepped in at times of crisis as an interim, been part of multiple coaching staffs, and then stepped in in January and led the club to one of their best periods of results in recent times.

You have to say that reaching Champions League football in the last decade was a big achievement, although this season hasn’t gone to plan. Again, I think there’s empathy from the fan base and from those at Manchester United.

But it’s not ideal for Michael Carrick, who is still seeking clarity around his future. That seems to be coming very soon, as Manchester United look more and more likely to be closer to appointing Mauricio Pochettino once they have a final decision on Michael Carrick.

“A Pretty Shameful Way to Treat Michael Carrick” (What We Think)

Well, we don’t think this looks good for Manchester United at all. Most people in football think this is a pretty shameful way to treat Michael Carrick, somebody who was an incredible player for the club, somebody who is Manchester United through and through.

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If you have decided to replace him, if you have verbally, in principle, apparently agreed a deal for Mauricio Pochettino to come in, why are you letting Michael Carrick suffer in public like this?

What’s the point of the chief executive and director of football flying to Monaco to try to rubber-stamp the sacking of Michael Carrick when it’s an open secret in football now that Michael Carrick is going to be leaving and he’s going to be replaced by Mauricio Pochettino?

We are all too old enough to remember a time when Manchester United used to do things the right way. My opinion is that this looks terrible for the club, and it’s just another sign of what has happened to Manchester United since the Glazers took charge of the club 21 years ago.

What does this whole saga tell us about how United is currently being run as a football club? It’s worth mentioning that the meeting between Omar Berrada, Jason Wilcox and Sir Jim Ratcliffe was already planned.

It is a regular meeting where they have to assess things. Obviously this is all happening at the same time, and now this is very much on the agenda. But what does it tell us about how the club is being run and managed?

Who’s running the club? Who’s making these decisions? There’s a chief executive, there’s a director of football. A lot of United fans don’t want them to be at the club. They think the chief executive doesn’t have enough experience, with no experience as a chief executive before he got the Manchester United job.

They think the director of football doesn’t have enough experience to be the director of football at a club as big as Manchester United. Then you’ve got INEOS and Jim Ratcliffe, who own around 30% of the club and are in charge of football operations, but everything has to be signed off by the Glazer family.

Has it been a unanimous decision to part ways with Michael Carrick, if they finally do decide that he is going to be sacked? Is it a unanimous decision that they get Mauricio Pochettino? And why Mauricio Pochettino? I think he’s a very good manager, but would he be in the frame to get the Liverpool job if that was available?

Would he be in the frame to get the Arsenal job if that was available? Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid, would they be looking at Mauricio Pochettino? This is somebody who, I don’t think, got the Spurs job the last time it was available. I think short term, it would be a good appointment.

The players will definitely respond to having somebody like Mauricio Pochettino in charge and calling the shots. But long term, I hope Mauricio knows what he’s letting himself in for if he does become the next United manager.

Some viewers’ comments have also come up. One of the earlier ones said, “Who would take the job, given the turnover that you have of managers?” And from listening to fans, and from what we all witnessed, there’s a belief that there are much bigger issues than just who’s in charge of running the club.

Is Pochettino the Right Man for the Job?

Look, if you’re looking for somebody with a proven track record who’s available, a proven track record in English football, I mean, Eddie Howe has got a better CV. Eddie Howe has won a domestic trophy in English football with Newcastle United. And Antonio Conte won the title in his first season at Chelsea.

So there are people out there who have a better track record than Mauricio Pochettino. Mauricio Pochettino is a very good manager. He did a good job at Southampton. They finished eighth. He did a good job at Spurs.

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They came close to winning the title. They got to the Champions League final, but in five seasons at Spurs, he didn’t win anything. He went to PSG. He had Neymar, Mbappé and Messi in his first season there. I think he was appointed in January. They finished second. It’s the only time in the last nine years that they haven’t won the title.

The following season, they did win the title. They won the French Cup under him as well, but he was sacked by PSG.

He went to Chelsea, another very political club. How long did he last at Chelsea? He lasted one season. They finished sixth. They won their last five games of the season. Some of the fans wanted him to stay. I think one of the owners wanted him to stay.

The other owner didn’t want him to stay. He lasted one season. Then he’s gone to the USA and he’s done a pretty good job. He hasn’t set the world on fire. I watched some of the USA games at the World Cup. They were the home nation.

There was a feel-good factor around the side, but every time they came up against decent opponents, they lost. They lost to Turkey, I think in the group stages, not a great Turkey side, and they were played off the park by Belgium in the round of 16 game.

So if you look at his CV, you would say Mauricio Pochettino is a very, very good manager, but under normal circumstances, he would not be getting one of the top, top jobs in world football.

Who Is Really Pushing for Pochettino at Manchester United?

Is the pursuit of Mauricio Pochettino partly to do with the compensation that has been paid to managers over previous seasons, and with release clauses and compensation owed when recruiting someone else? Is this a financial decision?

Since Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United, if they fire Carrick and hire Mauricio Pochettino, they will have spent more than a hundred million pounds hiring and firing managers. And if they get Mauricio Pochettino, everyone’s reporting that they’ll have to pay $10 million to get him.

They could have had him for nothing in the summer. In July, his contract with the USA ran out. He was available then. United, by then, had already appointed Michael Carrick, but surely they would have known that he was going to become available.

I’m just intrigued to know who at Manchester United is really pushing for Mauricio Pochettino to get the job. Is it the Glazer family? Is it Ratcliffe and INEOS? Is it Berrada and Wilcox?

There are a lot of reports in the US that it’s the Glazers who are pushing this. They see Mauricio Pochettino as the man to turn around United’s fortunes.

There are lots of different theories and lots of different reports, but he’s a brave man if he does sign on the dotted line to take on this job, because a lot of managers, the really, really elite managers over the past 10 or 15 years, have said, “Yes, Manchester United used to be a great club, but not the right fit for me. It’s not where I want to go.”

How unusual would it be if it is the case of the Glazers really wanting Pochettino, for them to step in and really make that known, publicly or not?

We don’t think it would be that unusual, because the bottom line is, despite the fact that Jim Ratcliffe is in charge of football operations, the Glazer family own more shares than he does. So ultimately, if the club belongs to anybody, it still belongs to the Glazer family.

And it’s only natural that they would want a say in who is going to be the manager, because from the US, they’re watching all this unfold. They’re seeing somebody they sold 30% of the club to, who said, “I want to take control of football operations. I can do a better job than the Glazers.” They are watching him make a total mess of it, because if they do fire Carrick and appoint Mauricio Pochettino, Pochettino will be the fourth manager they have had in three seasons.

And that is under Jim Ratcliffe. When Jim Ratcliffe came in, he said, “One of the big problems at United has been that we’ve been hiring and firing too many managers, and it’s not the manager’s fault.

It is something to do with the structure at the club.” And that is something he was going to sort out. Obviously, looking from the outside in, he hasn’t been very successful at doing that so far.