If you believe what the participants say, then the story of Alex Ferguson, Mauricio Pochettino, a £114 bottle of Brunello di Montalcino (2011) and the Scott’s establishment in Mayfair was nothing more than two men making good on a resolution to meet.

It was May 10 this year when the two men took up chairs there, with the Tottenham Hotspur manager’s assistant Jesús Pérez in tow – “myself and Sir Alex spoke, and Jesús drank,” Pochettino later related with a smile - and the Argentine characterised it as an opportunity for accelerated learning. He claimed he hadn’t slept the night before, as a verbal agreement to lunch, made at a League Managers’ Association dinner in March, firmed up into two coveted hours in Ferguson’s company.

But the choreography has always seemed a little more complex where the Godfather of Manchester United and Pochettino are concerned. Ferguson described him last season as the best manager in the league and although the Argentinian signed a new five-year contract at Tottenham within a few days of the Mayfair encounter, he has clearly been on Ferguson’s radar – and thus United’s.

This is the backdrop to the game of this weekend – Mourinho’s United v Pochettino’s Tottenham - which, after Mourinho v Wenger and Guardiola v Conte provides yet another absorbing managerial match up in a season which is becoming stuffed with them.

Though Ferguson has been glowing in his tributes for Mourinho too, you sense that Pochettino – who at 44 is nine years the Portuguese’s junior – fits more essentially into his notion of what successful football management is all about, not least developing a youthful, home-grown core. As the two sides prepare to collide at OId Trafford, Mourinho faces an almighty fight to prove that he’s not been turned into yesterday’s man by a coming man.



Pochettino really was making Mourinho seem ancient history two months or so ago, when Manchester City were overwhelmed by Spurs just 22 days after submitting Manchester United to a first half evisceration in the Old Trafford derby. Since then the picture has been scrambled by Tottenham’s stuttering progress. It will take more than a win over Swansea City and CSKA Moscow – whipping boys of the competitions in which Spurs met them – to suggest that Pochettino is back at the top of the hill.

His problems have included the struggle of some players whose performances prompted that fulsome Ferguson praise last spring to find the same level this season. Eric Dier, Jan Vertongen, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli are among them. Harry Kane and Mousa Dembele have struggled for fitness, while Moussa Sissoko, Victor Wanyama nor Vincent Janssen have looked worth the money paid out for them.

Manchester United transfer targets Show all 6 1 /6 Manchester United transfer targets Manchester United transfer targets Jose Gimenez (Atletico Madrid) The 21-year-old Uruguayan has already played 21 times for his country and has been touted as a future world-class centre-back. Currently on the books of Atletico Madrid, Gimenez is not a regular and a move in January for first-team football would surely appeal to him. Getty Manchester United transfer targets Victor Lindelof (Benfica) The most recent player to be linked with the Red Devils, Lindelof is a 22-year-old centre-back currently plying his trade at Benfica. The Swedish international has been in fine form this season and could be tempted by a move to England in January. Getty Manchester United transfer targets Mesut Özil (Arsenal) The German midfielder has emerged as a shock transfer target for the Red Devils as the Arsenal playmaker demands a substantial increase to his current £140,000 per week contract in North London. Getty Manchester United transfer targets Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid) The French forward had a brilliant season in Spain last year and was top scorer and Player of the Tournament as he helped his country to the final of Euro 2016. Atletico Madrid would certainly not let him go on the cheap however. Getty Manchester United transfer targets Yannick Carrasco (Atletico Madrid) The third Atletico Madrid player reported to be on Mourinho’s wish-list, Carrasco is one of Belgium’s new generation of talent and, at just 23 years of age, has a long career ahead of him. The Belgian is an attacking midfielder who has added a ruthlessness in front of goal to his repertoire this season, contributing nine goals in all competitions. Getty Manchester United transfer targets Bruma (Galatasaray) Galatasaray’s fleet-footed winger is rated at around £21.5m and has impressed in the Turkish league this season, receiving five Man of the Match awards in just ten starts so far. Bruma is a fantastic dribbler who would certainly provide competition for places on the left wing. Getty

Pochettino still looks a brighter light than Mourinho, though. This was the week we discovered that those at the top of Old Trafford are "encouraged" by what is seen as a more progressive style of play than Louis van Gaal instigated. But the very fact that such expressions of support are necessary speak for the club’s poorest start to a season for 26 years, with two wins in the past 11 league matches.

Mourinho’s current task is monumentally greater than Pochettino’s, however much money the former has at his disposal. The older man is handling a super-tanker, his adversary a pleasure craft. “It is not so easy to change in three months,” Mourinho observed recently. “Personality is the most difficult thing to change, whereas style of play you change here and there. I never went to a winning club or a club with the recent success where you can just introduce a little of your salt and pepper and maybe change a little the direction.”

But it certainly feels like the world has changed in the nine years since Tottenham chairman rang Mourinho fully five times after he had been sacked by Chelsea, offering the match his £5.2m Stamford Bridge salary - only for the move to be blocked by the strictures of the severance agreed with Roman Abramovich. “I couldn't go. I couldn't train in England for two years," Mourinho later reflected of Levy’s enticements in September 2007.

I never went to a winning club or a club with the recent success where you can just introduce a little of your salt and pepper and maybe change a little the direction. Jose Mourinho

Mourinho will be without Chris Smalling and Luke Shaw, yet with Eric Bailly available and also extolling the virtues of Henrik Mkitarayan, after his fine display and first United goal in Odessa against Zorya Luhansk on Thursday.