Mauricio Pochettino was sacked by Spurs on Tuesday – but could he really take over at Premier League rivals Manchester City?
Mauricio Pochettino has been backed to replace Pep Guardiola at Manchester City next summer by Trevor Sinclair, less than 24 hours after bidding an emotional farewell to Tottenham Hotspur.
After five-and-a-half years in charge, Spurs’ best manager since the legendary Bill Nicholson was sacked by chairman Daniel Levy on Tuesday evening with the North London giants labouring in the bottom half of the table.
No team in England’s top flight has lost as many league games as Spurs in the calendar year but, despite the rather sour nature of his departure, Pochettino remains one of the most respected coaches in world football.
The Argentine transformed a perennially underachieving side into genuine Premier League title contenders and took them to the Champions League final in May.
And former England international Sinclair would not be surprised to see Pochettino sitting in the Etihad dugout when the 2020/21 season kicks off.
“You’ve got an absolutely top-class manager that any club would want. He said the right things, he’s got humility and really good principles. How much would he have cost if some club went in to purchase him from Tottenham? He’d have cost fortunes,” the one-time Man City winger told Jim White on talkSPORT (20 November, 12pm).
“Guardiola looks irritated. He looks like he’s kind of had enough of VAR. if he does walk away from City in the summer, I think Pochettino would be the perfect candidate to walk in and take that hotseat.
“He’s a top, top-class manager.”
Guardiola remains under contract at Manchester City until 2021 but, with the Spaniard growing noticeably tetchy of late with Liverpool flying high at the top of the table, speculation is rife that he could walk away at the end of his fourth season in charge.
As Barcelona and Bayern Munich fans will tell you, an inevitable drop off tends to follow once Guardiola rides off into the sunset and City, at some point, will need to find a manager with the same sort of intensity and ferocity that makes the Catalan such a force of nature.
Pochettino is perhaps one of the few capable of stepping into the void and preventing a alarming dip in performances.
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