Now that Manchester United appear to have decided to appoint Ralf Rangnick as their interim manager until the end of the season, they have a bit more time to plan for the long-term future.
One of the names to emerge almost immediately after their dismissal of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was that of Mauricio Pochettino, who is currently under contract at Paris Saint-Germain.
The Argentine knows the Premier League well from his spells at Southampton and Tottenham, and many see him as the ideal man to take Manchester United forward under the right conditions with a coherent project.
However, the Ligue 1 side seem reticent to let their manager go midway through the season, although rumours of talks with Zinédine Zidane to take over at some point only fuelled the fire.
It was only a matter of time, but Leonardo, the French club’s technical director, has now commented to AFP on all the speculation, and to no one’s surprise, he’s dismissed it all.
Relayed by RMC Sport, he said: “We don’t want Pochettino to go. He’s never asked to leave and no club has contacted us for him. We have a lot of respect for Zinédine Zidane, what he’s done as a player and a manager, but I can tell you very clearly that there is no contact and no meeting with him took place.”
This directly contradicts what Le Parisien reported on Thursday, but, then again, if Leonardo had held a meeting with Pochettino’s potential replacement, he was never going to admit it publicly.
We’ll have to wait and see what comes of all of this, but, at least on the outside, all appears calm at Paris Saint-Germain, with Manchester United going about their business in their own way for the time being, perhaps simply waiting for the summer.
