Manchester United’s incoming manager Mauricio Pochettino isn’t walking into Old Trafford with any set of rose-tinted spectacles. The clear-eyed coach admitted that it will be a “very intense” start to a job which comes an unrelenting sense of pressure.
As the U.S. men’s national team strolled to a 6–0 rout of Haiti on Saturday night, Pochettino’s mind may have inadvertently wandered to the rather more pressing task of what awaits him in Manchester. United find themselves in the relegation zone at this stage of a season for the first time in 40 years, boasting just one win from 10 Premier League games and the second-worst defensive record in Europe’s top five leagues.
Following the conclusion of the November international break, while other continental leagues wind down over the festive period, the English calendar cranks up. Pochettino’s first seven games in the dugout will be crammed into the space of three weeks, starting with next Sunday’s trip to fierce rivals Liverpool.
With that stuffed schedule staring back at him, Pochettino justifiably told The Telegraph on Saturday that “it’s going to be very intense.”
Despite the daunting demands, there is a strong statistical chance that United will enjoy an uptick in form after this elongated slump. A recent study found that in the 10 games either side of a mid-season managerial change, that team’s points per game average jumped from 0.88 to 1.23.
However, it also came to the conclusion that “bad runs mostly end on their own,” as it was found that teams which experienced a similar dip in results and kept their manager went from 0.91 points per game to 1.17.
United, of course, will expect Pochettino’s presence to improve those numbers even further and the Argentine has a plan to harness the intangibles at his disposal.
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While explaining the open-ended nature of the release clause in his USMNT contract, Pochettino also revealed that he had only been afforded the chance to speak to United’s directors and one owner rather than the man behind his enduring admiration for the club.
Pochettino’s devotion to Sir Alex Ferguson is well documented. “When I was young, when I started my career as a manager, he was always my inspiration, my reference,” the Argentina has gushed in the past. “And when you can share two hours with a person who was the greatest manager in the history of football, you can only enjoy.”
The pair split an expensive bottle of wine 10 years ago when Ferguson first tried to lure Pochettino toward the Old Trafford dugout and the club’s latest appointment is keen for a reunion with his legendary predecessor.
“For sure I will have the opportunity after Tuesday,” Pochettino told The Telegraph. “I said many years ago and always I say the same—for me, Sir Alex Ferguson represents everything that I admire from a coach, a head coach, a man, a manager and I think he represents my values. I really admire him.”
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More than 13 years removed from his retirement, the figure of Ferguson continues to loom over the club. Michael Carrick regularly called his former manager while Ole Gunnar Solskjær refused to even use his parking space out of respect.
This is an unhelpful Manchester United tradition. When Sir Matt Busby—the iconic forerunner to Ferguson who won the club’s first ever European Cup in 1968—stepped down, he handpicked Wilf McGuinness as his successor without ever quite letting go of the reins. It didn’t help that his former player still insisted on calling Busby ‘Boss.’ Frank O’Farrell’s attempt to move past Busby started on a sour note. The incoming coach was given a cubby hole to work out of while his predecessor continued to hold court in the vast office he called home while manager.
There’s a school of thought that United may be best advised to move on from the reverie of Ferguson, turn a new page and shed the weight of history. But Pochettino, a self-confessed disciple of the Scotsman, will not be the one to commit any such act of heresy.
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