MICHAEL OWEN has tipped Mauricio Pochettino to become Manchester United’s next manager.
Working for BT Sport, the former striker ran the rule of Pochettino’s Paris Saint-Germain alongside Rio Ferdinand as they were beaten 2-1 by Manchester City last night.
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The broadcaster polled Red Devils fans on who they would like to see take charge, with Pochettino coming out on top ahead of the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Brendan Rodgers and Erik ten Hag.
And Owen feels the same way, telling his fellow panellists: “I actually agree with some of these tweets, the last few of them that we’ve looked at.
“I actually think that Pochettino could do more with the Man United team than he can with the PSG team.
“What can you do with that PSG team? The players pick themselves, really. They’re such good players they pick themselves.
“But whether you can mould that into a Champions League-winning team, I’m sceptical about.
“Whereas a Manchester United, okay they’re probably not good enough at the moment to win the Champions League.
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“But I think you could really mould them into a far, far better… get much more better results than they’re currently getting.”
On Ten Hag, Ferdinand added: “I think every one of them people on that list there’s question marks, there’s yes and nos to all of them.
“But I think what you’ve been crying out for with Man United is to see patterns of play, see an identity formed, a DNA.
“That’s not in question with his team at Ajax. Yes it’s a different league, he’s expected to win every year.
“But he’s still got to go and do it and you’ve still got to go and create a way of playing that suits the players that are on your roster and he’s done that magnificently well here.
“And you’ve got to understand as well, he went through a phase of having to rebuild this team because he lost huge players, three of his best players, they got rid of.
“Then there’s a conveyor belt of recruitment, but also with young players coming into the team from the youth team.
“And then he’s managed to gel it all together, he knows how to put teams together, and that is definitely an ask for a Man United manager, in the way of life at the moment.
“There’s a lot of if, buts and maybes when you bring in any manager.”
Owen continued: “I think Ajax have been one of the star turns of the Champions League in recent years.
“They’ve been, as Rio said, they’ve lost a lot of their best players, they still have patterns of play like this.
I don’t think Zidane at all, he hardly speaks a word of English
“I mean this is just a DNA throughout the club that they’ve got. And they lose a lot of their best players and they somehow manage to find another team that goes again and qualifies for the latter stages of the Champions League.
“I don’t know much about the manager, his team certainly play well so he’s got to enter the reckoning but of the four managers that we saw before, I think Pochettino is the most likely.
“I don’t think Zidane at all, he hardly speaks a word of English, I don’t think he really wants to manage in cold, wet Manchester – so I think he can be ruled out.”
Ferdinand said: “Luis Enrique’s a good option but the problem you’ve got with Luis Enrique is he’s the Spain manager and the World Cup would be in the middle of the season so that probably rules him out.”
Owen added: “Pochettino is the fascinating one, they could have had him for nothing a few months ago, now he’s going to cost an absolute fortune to get him out of Paris Saint-Germain and nothing’s changed at Manchester United.”
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