Manchester United missed out on Pep Guardiola to Manchester City – Mauricio Pochettino can’t be next

An uncomfortable truth bubbled in the build-up to the Manchester derby, which was made more awkward by the fact that little has changed at Old Trafford.

Pep Guardiola was reminded that if Sir Alex Ferguson had his way, as revealed in the book Leading, he would have been in Manchester United’s technical area for the first-leg of the League Cup semi-final on Tuesday, instead of pacing around Manchester City’s.

The pair had dined together at a New York restaurant in December 2012, six months prior to the Scot retiring after 27 years of reshaping the English game.

Guardiola was midway through a sabbatical after leaving Barcelona at that point and Ferguson requested that he get in touch before accepting an offer to return to management.

The Catalan, who Bayern Munich announced four months later would be succeeding Jupp Heynckes ahead of the 2013-14 season, admitted he failed to understand the legendary figure’s overtures.

United thus missed out on Ferguson’s first-choice candidate to rebuild the club following his retirement, settling for David Moyes instead. There was, as we all know, no happy ending to that story.

Guardiola revealed in 2017 that City had pushed hard to land him from his first day at the Allianz Arena, adding: “I said that if I went to the Premier League I would go to them.”

And on Monday, he insisted there would never be a scenario where he could take charge at Old Trafford in future, just as he’d reject guiding Real Madrid given his allegiance to Barca.

“After training City I won’t train United,” he said. “It is like I would never train Madrid. Definitely not.”

When pressed if he still wouldn’t accept a proposal from his club’s arch-rivals even if it was the only one on the table, Guardiola added: “I’d be in the Maldives if I don’t have any offers. Maybe not the Maldives, because it doesn’t have many golf courses!”

United have counted the cost of losing out on their primary managerial target to usher in the post-Ferguson era, watching instead as he transformed City into the pre-eminent domestic force.

Since Guardiola’s appointment, the club have amassed 73 more points than the 20-time league champions, while redefining the standards required to win the title.

United are currently 13 adrift of third-placed City this season, with question marks persisting over whether Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the right man to resuscitate the club’s winning habit.

The Norwegian, initially brought in on a caretaker basis to lift the mood after Jose Mourinho’s toxic final months, was not seen as the permanent solution prior to recording 14 wins from 19 matches.

Mauricio Pochettino, then still at Tottenham, was identified as the long-term answer for United. The club were swept up by that remarkable run though and rewarded Solskjaer with a three-year deal.

He has shown good intentions and ideas, but that remains the most positive period of the 46-year-old’s tenure, with the Old Trafford side yet to register three successive Premier League victories this season.

They have been especially deficient against deep defences with their counter-attacking threat nullified. While Guardiola has suggested United should be patient with Solskjaer, it would undoubtedly cause greater discomfort to the back-to-back champions – and the rest of the big six – if the now-available Pochettino were to replace him.

This is accentuated by the fact the Argentine tops a list of candidates that City would consider when their serial winner departs.

Can United afford to allow history to repeat itself? The strained neck they’d get from looking up the table suggests not and neither does their status as the current second-best team in Manchester.