Pochettino set for Man Utd job with Premier League record cited as key factor

What happened

Manchester United are set to appoint Mauricio Pochettino as their new manager, replacing Michael Carrick, according to Football365. The report says United value Pochettino's Premier League experience, built across spells at Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, and that he will inherit a side the outlet describes as languishing in the relegation zone and in need of swift improvement.

Report details

The report frames Pochettino's record at Southampton as the foundation of that reputation. He arrived to scepticism, succeeding Nigel Adkins, who had taken the club from League One to the Premier League and was dismissed with Saints 15th after 22 games and two defeats in 12. Football365 quotes Lawrie McMenemy's doubts about what Pochettino knew of the English game, the Premier League, the dressing room and the language. Southampton then lost only five of their remaining 18 matches, beating Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea, and finished 14th in their first season back in the top flight. In his one full season, 2013/14, Saints finished eighth, one place behind United in the first post-Ferguson campaign. The outlet says that made Southampton the Premier League's eighth-best side across his 55 games and gave the club a platform to finish in the top eight in each of the next three seasons; Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Jay Rodriguez won their first England caps under him.

That work led Spurs to appoint him in May 2014 as Tim Sherwood's replacement. Football365 reports that Spurs had just finished sixth and that Pochettino bettered that in each of his five full seasons: fifth, third, second, third and fourth. Across 202 Premier League matches, only Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City accumulated more points, the outlet says. It cites Pochettino's recent remark that "We've lived through a period of deception" regarding City, and his complaint that Spurs were held to strict financial rules while budgeting for a new stadium: "They were so strict with us but also so lenient with others." He was dismissed less than six months after reaching the Champions League final, with Spurs 14th after 12 matches and on their worst run since George Graham's tenure in 2000/01.

After more than a year out, Pochettino took the Paris Saint-Germain job and won Ligue 1 in his only full season, though the report says an ego-ravaged dressing room proved difficult to shape in his image. Another year out preceded his Chelsea appointment as the club's sixth permanent manager in five years. Chelsea had finished 12th before his arrival, and a transfer outlay of more than £400million took spending beyond a billion since Todd Boehly's 2022 takeover. Pochettino lifted Chelsea to sixth but left after one season, during which Gary Neville described the Blues as "billion-pound bottle jobs" after they lost the Carabao Cup final to a weakened Liverpool side. The report offers no further detail on the terms or timing of the United appointment.