Desperate Pochettino now clear favourite with bookies to take over at a desperate Manchester United

Paul Okey
22 November 2021

Argentine’s odds slashed to replace Solskjaer, while Zinedine Zidane hopes fade.

Mauricio Pochettino is apparently "desperate" to take charge of Manchester United and his determination to dump Paris Saint-Germain for the Red Devils has seen his odds on replacing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer slashed to 11/8 with Planet Sport Bet.

Desperate could equally be attributed to United's performance against Watford on Saturday, with the 4-1 drubbing underlining everything that is wrong with the club at the moment.

No backbone, no plan and literally no leadership after Harry Maguire succumbed to two yellow cards, United have already lost more games than the top three combined.

Whether Pochettino can mould together a pretty disparate bunch is still open to question given his failure to transform Tottenham from pretenders to title winners.

And given his resources at PSG, with Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi at his disposal, anything less than the Ligue 1 title and Champions League will be viewed as a failure this season.

United will be a different beast altogether, with memories of last season's runners-up spot having long since faded despite a summer which saw Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane and Cristiano Ronaldo arrive.

Certainly Zinedine Zidane appears to have seen enough, with the former Real Madrid manager having drifted in the betting on the back of talk of him not being keen to take over at Old Trafford.

The 49-year-old has long been linked with the France role given it would allow him to retain his Madrid base.

And nothing he will have witnessed from United in recent weeks would dissuade him from holding out for his dream job.

Pochettino, though, sees United as a long-term project - one that was getting longer by the day under Solskjaer.

His contract with PSG may be a sticking point, however, with the Argentine tied down to the Ligue 1 club until summer 2023.

Another fly in the ointment could be Brendan Rodgers, with the Leicester manager highly thought of among the hierarchy at Old Trafford.

With Leicester languishing in 12th, it appears he may have taken the Foxes as far as he can. The former Liverpool manager will relish the chance of another crack at a big club and can be backed at around 5/1.