★ Moneyball Original · Opinion
Pochettino for Carrick: would it be Manchester United's first right call in years?
By Moneyball Editorial · published · updated
Manchester United are looking for a manager again. Goal reported on Friday that Mauricio Pochettino, the head coach of the United States, is the leading candidate to replace Michael Carrick, and argued that it would be the club's first correct decision about a manager in years. That is an opinion. Moneyball's job is to put numbers under it.
So this column asks three questions with twelve Moneyball methods and the Stats Centre. How bad are Manchester United really? What is a Pochettino team worth in points, on his published record? And what does the rest of this season look like if United start playing at that pace?
1. Where United stand
United are 18th in the Premier League on 8 points from 10 matches (1 won, 5 drawn, 4 lost), with 14 goals scored and 19 conceded. The club finished third last season. After ten matches this season they had one win, their worst start since 1986/87, the season Ron Atkinson was sacked and Alex Ferguson arrived.
| Measure | Manchester United | Rank of 20 |
|---|---|---|
| League position (points) | 8 pts from 10 | 18th |
| Expected points (from xG) | 14.4 from 10 | 9th |
| Pi-rating (goal margin vs average) | −0.09 | 17th |
| Strength after shrinkage (xG margin per match) | +0.14 | 8th |
| Projected final points | 49 | 13th |
Expected points, what United's chances usually earn, give them 14.4 rather than 8 (9th in the league). They are 6.4 points short of what their football deserved. A new manager inherits that: some of those points come back by themselves, and whoever is in the dugout gets the credit. The Pi-rating, which moves with every result at home and away, ranks them 17th.
2. The defence, measured
United concede 1.90 goals a match. The chances they allow are worth 1.50 xG a match, and the ones they create 1.76. They have conceded 4.0 goals more than the chances they allowed were worth. That part is goalkeeping and luck, and the regression method expects some of it to come back whoever the manager is.
At the other end they have scored 3.6 goals fewer than their chances were worth. Finishing that poor rarely lasts a season. Carrick's patient, half-press approach asked players to hold their shape and wait. A side that waits and still allows this many good chances is not being protected by its system.
| Per match, season | Manchester United |
|---|---|
| Pressure Index | 58.3 (5th of 20) |
| Possession | 55.0% (6th of 20) |
| Pass accuracy | 85.5% (5th of 20) |
| Shots | 19.3 (1st of 20) |
| Big chances | 1.9 (6th of 20) |
| xG for | 1.76 (4th of 20) |
| xG against | 1.49 (12th of 20) |
| Clean sheets | 0.0 (19th of 20) |
United's Pressure Index is already 5th of 20: the running is there. What is missing is what the press is supposed to produce, chances for and fewer chances against.
3. What a Pochettino team is worth: the published record
A manager's reputation is a story. His points are a record. Pochettino has managed three Premier League clubs, and each one finished higher than the squad he took over suggested.
| Club and seasons | Points | Matches | Points a match | Finished |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southampton 2013/14 | 56 | 38 | 1.47 | 8th |
| Tottenham 2014 to 2019, five full seasons | 368 | 190 | 1.94 | 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th |
| Chelsea 2023/24 | 63 | 38 | 1.66 | 6th |
Southampton finished eighth in 2013/14, their best in eleven years. Tottenham were title challengers twice and reached the 2019 Champions League final without spending in two transfer windows. Chelsea, twelfth the season before he arrived, finished sixth, reached the League Cup final and turned Cole Palmer from a Manchester City substitute into one of the league's best players. He won Ligue 1 and the Coupe de France with Paris Saint-Germain. He has not won a major trophy in England. Both of those things are true, and the second is the fair argument against him.
The United States job has not added to the record: his side went out of the home World Cup in the round of 16, beaten 4-1 by Belgium. International football gives a coach forty training days a year. His method needs four hundred.
4. The rest of the season, at each pace
United have 28 league matches left. This is the simplest honest sum in the column: their points now, plus the matches left at each pace, set against the totals that each place has needed in our 10,000 simulated seasons.
| Pace for the matches left | Points a match | United's final total | About |
|---|---|---|---|
| United's own pace this season | 0.80 | 30 | 20th |
| Southampton 2013/14 | 1.47 | 49 | 12th |
| Tottenham 2014 to 2019, five full seasons | 1.94 | 62 | 5th |
| Chelsea 2023/24 | 1.66 | 54 | 9th |
| The line, in 10,000 simulated seasons | Points |
|---|---|
| Fourth place | 63 |
| Sixth place | 58 |
| Tenth place | 52 |
| Safety (17th) | 41 |
At the pace of his Tottenham years United finish on about 62 points, around 5th. At the pace of his Chelsea season, about 54. Neither is a title run. Both end the relegation talk by spring. At their own pace they finish on about 30, around 20th.
A caution the method insists on: a manager's old points were won with other squads in other seasons. The table shows what his football has been worth, not a promise. Bayesian shrinkage, applied to United's own xG margin, projects them to about 49 points (13th) if nothing changes at all.
5. 10,000 seasons: how much danger are United in?
With the squad and the football they have today, United finish in the bottom three in 10% of our simulations and in the top six in 10%. Safety has needed about 41 points; United need 33 more from 28 matches, 1.18 a match. That is not a number a club of this size can treat as someone else's problem. The appointment is a relegation decision before it is a project.
6. The squad he would inherit: Stats Centre, player by player
| Player | Minutes | Rating | Goals | Assists | xG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bruno Fernandes | 1135 | 7.56 | 6 | 3 | 5.39 |
| Matheus Cunha | 947 | 7.28 | 4 | 2 | 3.09 |
| Kobbie Mainoo | 723 | 7.13 | 0 | 1 | 0.37 |
| Youri Tielemans | 899 | 7.05 | 1 | 2 | 1.02 |
| Luke Shaw | 427 | 6.92 | 0 | 1 | 0.05 |
| Bryan Mbeumo | 1231 | 6.92 | 4 | 1 | 4.31 |
| Marcus Rashford | 420 | 6.87 | 0 | 0 | 1.22 |
| Mason Mount | 322 | 6.82 | 0 | 0 | 0.96 |
United's best-rated regular is Bruno Fernandes (7.56). Pochettino's record with players is the strongest part of his case. Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Dele Alli at Tottenham, Luke Shaw at seventeen at Southampton, Palmer at Chelsea: he improves the players he is given, which matters at a club that cannot buy its way out. United's young core, Kobbie Mainoo, Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven, and forwards whose end product comes and goes, Matheus Cunha and Amad Diallo, are the kind of players his teams have been built on.
The players who joined
| Player | Came from | Rating then | Rating now | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carlos Baleba | Brighton & Hove Albion | 6.65 | 6.70 | +0.05 |
| Andrey Santos | Chelsea | 6.76 | 6.73 | −0.03 |
| Youri Tielemans | Aston Villa | 7.15 | 7.05 | −0.10 |
| Marcus Rashford | FC Barcelona | 6.99 | 6.87 | −0.12 |
His 4-2-3-1 presses from the front as one unit, uses the full-backs for width and plays the wide forwards inside as second number tens. On this squad that means Bryan Mbeumo and Cunha closer to goal and Patrick Dorgu high on the left.
7. The condition: who decides
The reports agree on one more thing. Jason Wilcox, the director of football, has had the final say on transfers under Ruben Amorim and under Carrick, and is said to prefer Eddie Howe. Julian Nagelsmann is also free. Pochettino left Tottenham after a long disagreement with Daniel Levy about recruitment, and Chelsea after one season of a structure he did not control. The pattern is not subtle. If United appoint him on the terms Carrick had, the numbers in section 4 are the wrong ones to use.
The Moneyball verdict
Yes. On the evidence that can be counted, Pochettino is the right appointment, on one condition. United's problem is a defence that allows too many good chances and a side without a way of playing. His three Premier League teams all finished above their inheritance, at between 1.47 and 1.94 points a match, and his record of improving young players fits the squad United actually have. The condition is control: a head coach who presses needs the players for it, and the last two managers did not choose theirs.
Would it be the first right call in years? Carrick took United to third. That was not a wrong call at the time. The wrong call was giving him the job and then building the squad without him. Whoever comes next, the number to watch is not the league position. It is xG against per match. If that falls, everything else in this column follows.
- Expected goals (xG): the quality of every chance, so a team is judged on what it created and allowed, not only on what went in.
- Expected points: each match's xG run through a Dixon-Coles score matrix (the Poisson model with the low-score correction the Match Board uses) to give the points a performance usually earns.
- Pi-ratings: a rating for every club at home and away, moved after each result by how far the goal margin beat or missed what the ratings expected.
- Bayesian shrinkage: a club's xG margin is pulled toward the league average as if it had 8 average matches more, so a hot month is not mistaken for a new level.
- Projection: the shrunk strength played out against an average opponent for every match left, added to the points already won.
- Finishing and goalkeeping regression: goals against xG at both ends. A big gap either way rarely lasts a season.
- League ranks on Sportmonks' team figures: possession, passing, pressure, chances, duels.
- Player ratings per 90, from the same Sportmonks data that runs Moneyball Scout.
- Points per match, the published record: a manager's league points divided by his league matches, club by club.
- Pace scenarios: the points United have, plus the matches left at each pace, against the points each place has needed.
- Monte Carlo, 10,000 seasons: every remaining match played from each club's shrunk xG strength through the Dixon-Coles score matrix.
- Squad turnover: who left and who joined, last season's minutes against this season's.
Analysis by Moneyball Editorial. The reports about Pochettino, the release clause and the club's structure are as published by Goal on 13 November 2026; nothing is confirmed by Manchester United. His past points and finishes are the published record. Every other figure is read from the Sportmonks data at each update, and the sentences around it change with it.
Manchester United in the Stats Centre Bruno Fernandes in the Stats Centre Matheus Cunha in the Stats Centre Kobbie Mainoo in the Stats Centre
Questions
- Is Mauricio Pochettino going to be Manchester United's manager?
- Nothing is signed. Goal reported on 13 November 2026 that Pochettino, the head coach of the United States, is the leading candidate to replace Michael Carrick, and that a release clause of about $10 million would free him from his contract with U.S. Soccer.
- How many points would Pochettino's record be worth to Manchester United this season?
- At the pace of his Chelsea season (1.66 points a match) United would finish on about 54 points; at the pace of his five full Tottenham seasons (1.94) about 62. At their own pace this season they finish on about 30.
- Can Manchester United still be relegated?
- In Moneyball's 10,000 simulations of the rest of the Premier League season United finish in the bottom three 10% of the time. Safety has needed about 41 points.