With Manchester United getting kicked out of the Champions League, it’s little surprise to find there are plenty of people calling for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to be sacked.
Such calls have become commonplace recently. In a way, the 3-2 defeat by RB Leipzig wasn’t a huge shock. If anything, Manchester United’s inconsistency has become their hallmark. For every decent result that the team gets, they seem to suffer a shocking defeat. From the 6-1 thrashing by Tottenham to the shock 2-1 Champions League win by Istanbul Basaksehir, it seems that Solskjaer can’t get his team to settle.
This has caused star players like Paul Pogba to say they want to leave Manchester United, and such discontent could easily spread among his teammates. As a result, many of the bookmakers featured in this list on gamblingguy.com have already started taking bets on who will be the next manager at Old Trafford.
While Wayne Rooney is currently at odds of 29.00 to get the job, it’s widely believed that the former Man U star isn’t quite up to the task just yet. Here are the most likely contenders to be the next Manchester United manager.
Mauricio Pochettino
The ex-Spurs boss is the clear favourite to get the job at Old Trafford should things continue to go badly for Solskjaer. Pochettino has been out of work since he was sacked from Tottenham just over a year ago. He had earned plenty of acclaim for cultivating an exciting attack-minded style of play at Tottenham and took the club all the way to the Champions League Final in 2019.
However Spurs seemed to sink into the doldrums after losing the final against Liverpool, and Pochettino was given the boot despite being hugely popular with the fans. Since then the Argentine manager has apparently been biding his time waiting for the right kind of offer to come up.
With European titans like Barcelona and Real Madrid both suffering from a bizarre lack of form, there’s every chance that Pochettino could be tempted to head to Spain. All of which means that Manchester United chief executive Ed Woodward will have to work quickly to get Pochettino to be the next boss at Old Trafford.
Massimiliano Allegri
Any new manager who comes to Old Trafford is going to have a real task in working under the shadow of Sir Alex Ferguson. As a result, there are persistent rumours that Manchester United are seeking to get one of the biggest names in European football - Massimiliano Allegri.
Allegri left Juventus in the summer of 2019 and this followed on from helping the Italian team win four consecutive domestic doubles. He left Juventus with a 70.4% winning record which are the best statistics in the club's history and so it’s little surprise that many think that Allegri would be the perfect fit for a club of Manchester United’s calibre.
However, it’s worth noting that life in the Premier League is very different to that of Serie A. Plus Allegri has already been tipped to take over at Arsenal should Mikel Arteta fail to turn around the troubled club’s fortunes anytime soon. But with some decent new investments such as Bruno Fernandes and Edinson Cavani, Manchester United might just have what it takes to tempt Allegri to come to English football.
Brendan Rodgers
The Leicester City boss has once again proven to be capable of delivering the goods in the Foxes’ spectacular start to their 2020/21 Premier League campaign. Leicester are currently in fourth-place in the league table despite having a much less expensive squad than many of their big name rivals.
It’s Rodgers’ ability to get the most out of his talented team that will be particularly attractive to the Manchester United board. Rodgers previously had an excellent run of success at Celtic, and he came achingly close to guiding Leicester to a Champions League place last season.
Everybody from Alan Brazil to Robbie Savage have said that Rodgers could have what it takes to be the next Manchester United boss. But with Rodgers looking very happy at the King Power Stadium, it would take some encouragement to get the Leicester boss to jump ship.
Ralph Hasenhuttl
Southampton have been one of the surprise packages of the 2020/21 Premier League campaign and it’s largely down to the talents of Ralph Hasenhuttl. The Austrian manager has somehow managed to turn Southampton from being a fairly mediocre side into one of the most dynamic and pressing teams in top-flight football. As a result, many were shocked to see Southampton at the top of the Premier League table this autumn.
It’s all a massive change from when Hasenhuttl’s team suffered a disastrous 9-0 demolition by Leicester City just over a year ago. Such a rapid transformation is a testament to the manager’s skill at motivating the Southampton players.
Many have suggested that the ‘Alpine Klopp’ is one of the best managers in the Premier League, and he could be a good fit for managing the unruly egos at Old Trafford. But whether Hasenhuttl has enough experience managing big-name teams like Manchester United remains to be seen.
Julian Nagelsmann
It would be deeply ironic if Manchester United appointed Julian Nagelsmann to be the club’s next manager. After all, the 33-year old has masterminded RB Leipzig into becoming Germany’s most exciting football team who took great pleasure in booting Solskjaer’s United out of the Champions League.
Again, there are some who suggest that Nagelsmann isn’t quite ready to manage a club of Manchester United’s prestige. But given that United have been struggling under the similarly inexperienced Solkskjaer for many months, it could be that now’s the time to bring in some fresh blood.
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