Manchester United are growing increasingly confident of appointing Paris Saint-Germain boss Mauricio Pochettino as their permanent manager this summer.
The Argentine is thought to be the number one candidate to take the Old Trafford hotseat whenever Ralf Rangnick’s spell as interim coach comes to an end at the conclusion of the current campaign.
Rangnick is due to move upstairs at United into a two-year consultancy role regardless of results between now and the end of the campaign, with the club still in the Champions League and FA Cup alongside their pursuit of a top four spot.
Pochettino has been on United’s radar for several years but the stars have not aligned for the club to make an appointment – until now.
Having built up a strong reputation in England following sterling jobs with Southampton and Tottenham, things have not gone to plan for Pochettino at PSG – who are now prepared to let him leave.
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The 49-year-old took over from Thomas Tuchel in January 2021 and, despite sitting 11 points clear at the top of Ligue 1, his time in Paris has been far from a happy one.
The failure to win the Ligue 1 title last year – beaten by outsiders Lille – was a low point, even if he had taken the helm with PSG languishing in third.
Pochettino did earn the first silverware of his managerial career by lifting the Trophée des Champions and Coupe de France, but they were merely a footnote in the season for PSG, geared towards conquering Europe for the first time in their history.
Impressive Champions League wins over Barcelona and Bayern Munich were followed by a semi-final exit to Manchester City – no disaster but a regression on the previous campaign, when Tuchel had guided the side to the showpiece event before falling to Bayern.
This summer’s transfer window cranked up expectations yet further – the arrival of Lionel Messi followed those of Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Achraf Hakimi, Nuno Mendes and Georginio Wijnaldum as PSG continued to pose as football’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters.
It was not just expected that PSG would clean house in France but that they would do so in emphatic style, while also cracking the code to win the Champions League – anything else was a failure.
That is why PSG running away with the Ligue 1 title was never an accurate measure of Pochettino’s success in France – a league where their financial dominance dwarves all rival clubs several times over.
To say that Pochettino’s side have been unconvincing would be quite an understatement – regularly stumbling to undeserving victories and draws where their team performances were well short of the sum of their parts.
The arrival of Messi has offset any attacking rhythm that they had enjoyed when Kylian Mbappe devastatingly linked-up with Neymar and Angel di Maria in previous years.
Mbappe is, by a distance, PSG’s star player this year but he looks set to leave as a free agent this summer and with Neymar’s injury problems continuing amid a prolonged slump of form, problems are mounting up.
Messi has netted just once domestically so far for Pochettino’s side and has often been anonymous, clearly uncomfortable on the right-side of a three-man attack – rather than the free playmaker role he enjoyed at Barcelona.
Pochettino is not the only problem at PSG, but he is the one that is quickest to resolve from the club’s point of view.
Le Parisien reports that PSG were approaching other managers last month to gauge their interest in taking over from the beleaguered Pochettino.
Indeed, it is claimed that Zinedine Zidane has been approached and that his reluctance to take the job mid-season is that he does not want to take charge against former club Real Madrid in the Champions League Round of 16 tie.
That could well prove to be definitive in PSG’s season; if they are eliminated, the rest of their campaign will be going through the motions but progression could ignite a struggling campaign and put them within a handful of victories of the prize upon which their entire strategy is based on winning.
The feeling of discontent is mutual between Pochettino and the hierarchy of his club, including sporting director Leonardo.
Pochettino has not suddenly become a bad manager, but it is increasingly evident that he is a bad fit for PSG in terms of his relationship with the players and those who hold positions of influence at the club.
Pochettino is ‘fed up’ with the role, according to Foot Mercato, which would explain reports earlier this campaign that he could be prepared to quit the Parc des Princes mid-season to take the Old Trafford vacancy after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ’s dismissal.
The complications in terms of the timing scuppered that arrangement, but the Argentine’s availability this summer is increasingly becoming an inevitability.
Pochettino's predecessor Tuchel ran into all these problems in the French capital before immediately joining Chelsea and seeing a remarkable upturn in form - including a Champions League title.
United will be aware of this context and believe that their long-term admiration of Pochettino will finally pay off.
