Sky Sports' Gary Neville says it will be key for Mauricio Pochettino to take a leading role in Manchester United's recruitment plans for the upcoming transfer window and beyond if he is to achieve success at Old Trafford.
Pochettino has been appointed as successor to the sacked Michael Carrick and will take over with United in the Premier League relegation zone after making their worst-ever start to the competition after 10 games.Neville is a long-term admirer of Pochettino but says the Argentine will need to oversee a substantial overhaul of the club's squad if he is to significantly improve United's fortunes."I'm hoping Mauricio
Pochettino has done a couple of things on the way in and I'm hoping he protects himself on his contract because he'll need to," Neville told Sky Sports News.
"I'm sure he's stated that he needs a massive budget.
I think he needs defenders straight away to get Manchester United anywhere near where they want to be this season."And the other thing is to make sure that he takes control of the recruitment because it's quite clear that what happened in the summer is well below the standard again."He's got to come in here and protect himself against actually the people that he's working with.
They are currently trying to employ him."He needs to make sure he takes the club into his own hands, into his own destiny, make sure he controls his own outcomes and make sure he's absolutely unequivocal in getting money to improve the defence initially in January and improving the midfield and forward line next summer."Man Utd appoint Mauricio Pochettino as head coachCarrick sacked by Man Utd | Is Pochettino a
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Latest Sky Sports deals or stream PL games with no contract📺For Neville, United need a complete defensive overhaul, further midfield reinforcements and a new centre-forward, with only Kobbie Mainoo currently convincing him in midfield, in a reflection of the rebuild that the incoming boss faces.He estimates that Pochettino could need around 10 new players to get United back to where they want to be."If I said that
the midfield that I've seen this season, only Kobbie Mainoo to me looks like he's good enough," said Neville."The back line, I think it needs a complete rebuild and I think we need a centre-forward."So I don't know how many that is and probably you could argue we need back-up in goal as well.
"So my view would be probably, I don't know yet, there's probably five or six in defence, there's two or three in midfield, there's a goalkeeper and there's probably a centre-forward."And I think you're probably looking at about 10 players that you would need to basically rotate out."Lisandro Martinez told us that basically the sporting director should have brought more players in the summer, so the players know it
themselves."So Mauricio Pochettino, who's been around the block and knows how to manage football clubs, he'll have a pretty good idea, having watched Manchester United many times over many years."He'll know what he needs to do."'Pochettino has got to protect himself'Pochettino has been considered for the United job on previous occasions, but Neville has warned him against believing that a change of manager alone will
solve the club's problems.Neville remembers visiting Pochettino at Tottenham during his early days in charge, when the Argentine was already identifying which players he wanted to build around and which he needed to move on."I think the mistake that Mauricio could make if he comes in is that he may get an initial bounce out of them.
He may get six months of bounce out of them," Neville continued. "I actually remember going to see him at Tottenham in his very early days. We used to, when I was coaching with England, train at Tottenham's training ground."He set out very quickly within the first six to eight months in the job.
He had a whiteboard in front of him in his office with all the players' names on little markers and he actually moved a group of players over to the left-hand side of the board and said: 'These are the ones I know I need to get rid of. These are the ones I know I can work with and build around.'"He's got to identify that very quickly at United and I'm sure he will do that.
He's more experienced now than he was when he was at Tottenham."But he's got a big job to do in exiting players. Manchester United have been really poor at
