Jamie Carragher appears to have put rivalries aside to agree with Wayne Rooney 's suggestion that Mauricio Pochettino should be Manchester United 's next manager.
The Red Devils are yet to make a permanent appointment with less than two months of the season to go and interim boss Ralf Rangnick preparing to head into a consultancy role. The club have interviewed both Ajax manager Erik ten Hag and Paris Saint-Germain boss Pochettino for the vacant post, with the star-studded United dressing room - and Rooney - favouring the latter.
Now former Liverpool defender Carragher has seemingly backed up the Red Devils legend's choice, retweeting his comments made on Monday Night Football. "I think Pochettino's done it in the Premier League, he knows the Premier League," Rooney declared on Sky Sports. "At Tottenham (Hotspur) he bought through a lot of young players - the same at Southampton.
"So if I'm choosing from one of them two I'd go for Pochettino - and give him time. Managers now they need time to come in and put their blueprint on the club and the team and given time I think he'll do well." United's all-time top goalscorer went on to say: "Pochettino in my opinion is a top manager. He knows how to work with top class players but also with young players. They need to get that blend right because they can't afford to fail again."
Whether it be Ten Hag or Pochettino, Rooney reckons that his old manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, is making the job even more difficult. The current Derby County boss harbours concerns over the 80-year-old's influence at the club, nine years after retiring and selecting David Moyes as his successor, who had an "impossible task" ahead of him.
"You could see that even though we won the Premier League that season, you could see everyone was down because they knew that [Ferguson] was gone," Rooney explained. "He is still involved in some way and I think that brings pressure on to any new managers coming in and if you want to manage Manchester United, you have to do it your way and make your own decisions."
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The 36-year-old then stressed that whoever steps into the Old Trafford dugout must be given time to embed himself within the club, having not seen a manager last three seasons since Ferguson's departure. "It needs someone to come in with that time to get that club back to where it deserves to be," Rooney affirmed.
"It's not going to happen if you keep changing manager every two years. Ferguson was like the godfather of the club, not just the players but the staff, the academy, he was on top of everything. When you lose someone like that from the club, someone else is coming in and it's a massive change."
