After the news broke early this morning that Manchester United sacked Jose Mourinho, the first thought that came to mind was, who is next?
With it being confirmed that former player; now first team coaching staff Michael Carrick is taking over for the next ’48 hours’, a temporary head coach will be announced until the end of the season.
There are many names being rumoured to take over and opinions differing, but for now, where does this leave the former kings of Europe? With a tough away game on Saturday at Neil Warnock’s Cardiff City, we are all expecting a big name to be in the dugout as the Red Devils will be looking to galvanise the whole club ready for the new long term manager at the start of the 2019/2020 season.
As many of us football fans all know, Manchester United are without a director of football and this is also something that vice chairman and chief executive Ed Woodward will be looking to bring into the club, an individual who understands the structure and what is needed to succeed. In terms of on the field and for now, Manchester United are currently sitting sixth in the Premier League, 11 points off of the all-important champions league qualification places, this remains the biggest reasoning why Mourinho was axed by the club, as United with all their flaws and worldwide brand, cannot afford to miss out on this prestigious competition.
At the top of Woodward’s Christmas list is Mauricio Pochettino to take the role of head coach. This is many United fans' dream as Pochettino has hugely impressed at Tottenham Hotspur as the Argentine's style of play and history of bringing youth players into the first team fold is sublime. The question mark around Pochettino is that he has failed to win a trophy throughout his managerial career, this worries the Old Trafford faithful but with a negative net spend and no current home stadium, Mauricio has sustained the North London club in the top four and constantly provided exciting football.
With the likes of Harry Kane, Kieran Trippier and Christian Eriksen all vastly improving under Pochettino’s wing, these are factors that put the former Southampton managers name at the top to take over come the end of the season. Thankfully for Spurs fans, Chairman Daniel Levy is one of the most stubborn and stern men when it comes to transfer dealings and it will take a masterstroke by Woodward to pull this one off. With Mr Levy understanding the pedigree of Pochettino, it’s highly unlikely that the chairman will sell as the club are close to moving into a brand new 62,000 seater stadium and the progress under Poch keeps increasing. The man himself certainly may not want to jump ship as he is in the process of building a legacy at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
The other name that is dividing opinion between Manchester United fans is of course, Zinedine Zidane. This is the dream appointment because of his calibre and record of winning trophies at Spanish giants Real Madrid. During the Frenchman’s short managerial career, Zizou won three consecutive UEFA Champions League trophies, an achievement that no other coach has been able to do. In addition to this, Zidane arguably galvanised one of the best squads the football world has seen, because of his excellent man to man management and ability to control players with ‘ego’s’. With all this being said, you may ask the question… surely Zidane is the right man? A possible negative of appointing the 2006 world cup winner is that he’s never actually faced a stumbling block as a manger.
Many will say Zidane isn’t prepared for the current ‘crisis’ and problems that the Manchester club are dealing with. Appointing Zinedine Zidane would be perfect if the club were achieving constant success but because this isn’t the case, the Zidane debate will always cause doubt because of his inexperience of managing a club in disarray and leading them back to the top of European football. It will certainly be a big risk for the Red Devils but if it comes off, we could potentially witness a magnificent era of Premier League and European domination.
