Aston Villa links to Mauricio Pochettino ‘pure speculation’ – report
Reports linking Mauricio Pochettino to the manager’s post at Aston Villa are “pure speculation”, club sources have told Birmingham Live’s Ashley Preece.
It was The Telegraph who reported on 17 October that the Villans were considering sacking current boss Steven Gerrard amid poor results and replacing him with the former Tottenham Hotspur and Paris Saint-Germain head coach.
The Argentine has been out of work since he was sacked by the French champions following poor performances in the Champions League and replaced by Christophe Galtier.
“Mauricio Pochettino is widely tipped to be the man to replace Gerrard should Villa make a managerial change,” Preece said in his Villa Notebook.
“However, Villa sources have said that reports this week are pure speculation. The highly-regarded Argentinian is currently out of work after leaving Paris Saint-Germain back in July.”
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No one would try to claim that Pochettino was a better footballer than Gerrard when they played but equally, nobody would suggest the opposite when it comes to management.
Things have been far from smooth sailing for the former England captain since he arrived in the Midlands from Rangers and pressure is building more and more on his shoulders.
Defeat against Fulham might well be the final straw for the owners with the Cottagers having one of the leakiest defences in the Premier League so far this season.
So there has to be some forward thinking as to who might be available to come in and replace Gerrard if he does get the sack because there is no point in getting rid of him otherwise.
Results aren’t yet at a stage where there’s no future for Gerrard at Aston Villa but he can’t keep scraping to results and expect his position to remain tenable.
In other Aston Villa news, Danny Murphy thinks Villa were unfortunate to come up against a very in-form Chelsea player last weekend.