Manchester United legend Gary Neville has asked the club’s fans who they would like to see come in as the new manager this summer.
The Red Devils are working on hiring a permanent successor to current interim manager Ralf Rangnick, and Neville gave fans on Twitter the choice between Erik ten Hag or Mauricio Pochettino.
Interestingly, the response at the time of writing is really conclusive, with over 80% of the 173k-plus fans who responded going for the Ajax manager over the Paris Saint-Germain and former Tottenham boss…
Reports Ten Hag has been interviewed this week . If formal interviews have started and with it being such a public process I would expect a new manager announcement within a week or so.
Who do United fans want ?
— Gary Neville (@GNev2) March 23, 2022
Pochettino is more proven in the Premier League after doing great work at Spurs earlier in his career, but his spell at PSG has been pretty underwhelming, and could be counting against him now.
It would be interesting to know, however, who Man Utd fans might pick if they were given a number of other options to choose from.
For instance, speaking to CaughtOffside this week, former United midfielder Luke Chadwick insisted that Chelsea’s Thomas Tuchel could be a better option than either of those two, and should be considered if there’s a chance of him leaving Stamford Bridge.
“It’s not done Pochettino any favours, how it’s gone at PSG,” Chadwick said. “You look at that first leg against Real Madrid and you think they’ve got a real chance of winning the Champions League – they have great players, great pace on the counter-attack, but it’s not gone the way Pochettino would’ve wanted.
“I’ve been adamant that Pochettino could be the man for job. I do still think he could do a good job, but you look at how things went at Tottenham, it ended badly for him there, they didn’t actually win anything.
“Obviously Ten Hag is coming with very different experience, but it does seem like he’s the favourite and he’s the one to do the job. The main thing is that it needs to be announced, so the club can start building, and so that fans know who’s coming in, and the players know who’s coming in. Now’s the time to make the decision so they have as much time as possible to prepare for the start of next season.
“The way Tuchel’s conducted himself throughout the crisis at Chelsea has been really good, and obviously he’s a world class manager. He’s without a doubt got a more impressive CV than Pochettino or Ten Hag, with what he’s achieved in the game.
“If he’s an option I think everyone involved with United would be excited at the opportunity to try to speak to him and lure him to Old Trafford. Still, if a takeover gets done at Chelsea, you imagine Tuchel would probably stay there, given the state of the two clubs, even if there is that uncertainty surrounding Chelsea until Roman Abramovich goes.”