Former Spurs’ gaffer Mauricio Pochettino has completed his 6-months gardening leave and is now free to manage again. The 48-year-old is bound to be in high demand, despite having achieved nothing at Tottenham that resulted in silverwear. Arguably to two highest-profile vacancies in world football right now are at Newcastle United and Real Madrid.
According to The Sun, Poch’s period of contractual rest expired on Monday, leaving the Argentine suddenly available to get back into the management game. Newcastle might prove rather tempting with an alleged £19million salary deal in the offering, plus of course, Mauricio’s immediate familiarity with the division.
Opinion
I have my doubts about Poch’s relevance in a post-Coronavirus football world. Virtually nobody will have much money to spend and experience may prove to be more valuable than a ‘philosophy’. One cannot help but feel that game will be a lot more hand to mouth than it was. Pochettino’s ace card is that he’s a nice guy. Will that be enough?
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What do you do when you’re not handing out bibles?
Poch’s ace card isn’t “being a nice guy”, it’s taking mediocre journeymen like Lallana and Wolfswinkle, and turning them into a high functioning unit, with little to no financial backing. He’ll be in high demand, and rightly so.
The “no silverware” trope is tired and ridiculous. Sure, he made some bad decisions, we all do – starting Kane in CL final being the most memorable. His remit was to get us into the CL, not win some throw-away clown cup competition. Win the league, or win the CL, the rest is just wanking. He did his job, wasn’t backed, and was easily the best manager we’ve had in decades.
Toon bound then
Absolutely right Harry virtually nobody will have any money, except for the petrokingdoms of Manchester City, PSG and now it seems Newcastle United backed by the Sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. To put this in perspective The Sunday Times Rich List has Usmanov the owner of Everton as the wealthiest Premier League owner with an estimated fortune of £11 billion. The prospective owner of Newcastle has a worth of over £300 billion. Even Poch couldn’t put much of a dent in that and the money literally keeps flowing every second of every day. To make matters worse FIFA and UEFA are talking about relaxing the Financial Fair play Rules at exactly the wrong time for most clubs and the right time for the City’s and Newcastles.
Madrid have a squad ready to win. Newcastle will have to be built. Tuff decision for poch. If I was him I think I’d run back to Spain. His decision won’t be wages based I don’t think. He needs trophies NOW.