The upcoming two weeks are crucial for Steven Gerrard to keep hold of his job at Aston Villa, with his team set to travel to Craven Cottage to face Fulham, host Brentford at Villa Park and go to St. James Park to take on Newcastle. At the moment, Villa are in 16th place in the Premier League with just nine points from 10 games, having won only twice, and if the next few results don’t turn out satisfactory, the former Liverpool captain is likely to be shown to the exit door.
According to The Telegraph, Villa are already preparing for such an eventuality. The name currently toping the list of potential candidates to replace Gerrard is Mauricio Pochettino, who has been out of work since leaving Paris Saint-Germain in July this year.
The Argentinian coach has already spent almost seven years managing in the Premier League, 18 months at Southampton and the rest at Tottenham Hotspur, finishing second in the English top flight and reaching the 2019 Champions League final with the latter. He was sacked from Spurs in November that year after an underwhelming start to the 2019/20 season, and took over at PSG in January 2021, replacing Thomas Tuchel.
Since leaving Paris, Pochettino was offered the job at OGC Nice, but he wasn’t interested.
Nonetheless, Aston Villa are hopeful that presented with a chance to return to the Premier League, to manage a club with aspirations towards closing the gap to the top-end of the table, Pochettino would be tempted sufficiently to get back to work.
