In the footsteps of Ferguson and with Bielsa's ideas: does Pochettino hold the key to Manchester United's revival?

Mauricio Pochettino did not need to think long when he was asked to pick three managers in the Premier League he would have liked to play under. The Argentine coach did not hesitate, nor did he look for multiple names reflecting the diversity of his experiences. Instead, he chose a single name and repeated it three times: "Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Alex Ferguson."

That answer was not merely a courtesy to a Manchester United legend. It was an expression of long-standing admiration for a manager who left an exceptional mark on the history of English football, and who became a model to emulate in building teams, manufacturing victories and sustaining competitiveness for many years.

Pochettino now has a chance to come close to that legacy, having taken over the technical reins at Manchester United. His mission is not confined to improving results. It extends to redefining the identity of a team that has lost many of its features since Ferguson's departure in 2013.

The irony is that the Argentine does not arrive with a philosophy entirely alien to the ideas Michael Carrick tried to apply during his recent spell with the team. Both believe in fast attacking football, flexible movement and exploiting spaces. Yet the difference may lie in the details that made Pochettino a success and robbed Carrick of the ability to continue his project.

Pochettino's admiration for Sir Alex Ferguson was not born of the moment, nor linked to his taking charge of Manchester United. It goes back many years in his coaching career.

Back in 2023, during an interview with Sky Sports while managing Chelsea, the Argentine spoke of his great appreciation for Ferguson, recalling memories of their meeting during his time in charge of Tottenham.

Six years before that, Pochettino had the chance to have lunch with the legendary manager. He described it as one of the special moments of his career.

He said: "When I was young, and at the beginnings of my coaching career, Ferguson was always my source of inspiration and my first reference. When you get the chance to spend two hours with someone considered the greatest coach in the history of football, you can only enjoy every moment."

Since Ferguson's retirement, Manchester United have struggled to find the coaching personality capable of combining the achievement of victories with the preservation of the team's identity.

Visions have divided within the club and among its fans over the priority required to return the team to the summit. Some believe winning must come before any other consideration. Others cling to the need to restore the style of play associated with the club's best periods, based on initiative, attack, speed and pressing opponents.

A succession of coaches with different philosophies have managed the team, alongside names associated as players with the Ferguson era. None of them delivered the ideal equation that combines results and identity.

Here the importance of Pochettino's arrival emerges. He possesses a clear tactical reference point alongside his intense admiration for the legacy Ferguson left, which may make him capable of combining two schools that have long seemed opposed within Old Trafford.

Manchester United under Michael Carrick produced a set of positive results. The team appeared in many periods in a convincing attacking guise, indeed finishing last season at a level no other team in the Premier League could match.

Behind this brilliance lay a tactical problem Carrick did not solve in a sustainable manner. It related to the team's ability to impose its style when required to hold possession and control the course of play.

The numbers reveal an important aspect of this dilemma. In matches where United held the ball with a share of less than 50% under Carrick, the team suffered only one defeat, and won 62% of those encounters, a total of 13 matches.

By contrast, their win percentage fell to 36% when they held the ball and imposed their control on the game. These numbers show United were more dangerous when they left the opponent the chance to advance, then exploited the spaces behind their lines through fast attacking transitions.

This suited the characteristics of a number of the team's players, especially the forwards who are good at dealing with spaces and direct play. It also granted the back line a greater degree of protection, after the team became able to exploit opponents' mistakes rather than bearing the responsibility of creating play all the time.

Casemiro's mastery of set pieces also played an important role in giving the team additional attacking solutions, especially against opponents who rely on defensive compactness, which is one of the problems that appeared clearly during the current season.

With United leading in the scoreline, the opponent found itself forced to take risks and push forward in search of an equaliser, exposing the spaces that Carrick's players needed in order to launch their counter-attacks.

This recipe was effective. But it was not enough to build a team that competes for major titles on a regular basis.

Carrick's ambition was greater than merely relying on counter-attacks. He wanted to turn Manchester United into a team capable of controlling the ball and building attacks from the back using short, precise passes.

The English coach drew some of his ideas from Paris Saint-Germain's midfield trio, seeking to develop the way play is built and to draw the opponent into certain areas before beating their press and surging towards their goal.

His idea was based on luring the opponent, then exploiting the spaces they leave behind them, while accelerating the tempo of play as soon as the appropriate areas were reached, according to BBC Sport.

Implementing this philosophy ran into an old problem Manchester United suffered from in previous experiences, whether with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Erik ten Hag. Namely the transition from a team that is good at playing in spaces to a team that can create those spaces itself against compact opponents.

This is precisely what makes Pochettino's mission interesting. He does not necessarily need to abandon the attacking principles Carrick tried to apply, but to give them a clearer and more disciplined tactical framework.

Pochettino has described his coaching philosophy as based on the necessity that his team take the initiative in matches, through continuous high pressing, great physical effort, and vitality and dynamism in movement.

The Argentine considers himself one of the disciples of his compatriot Marcelo Bielsa, under whom he previously played, and he was influenced by his ideas relating to pressing, spreading out and continuous movement off the ball.

A model close to this school can be found in the experience of Andoni Iraola in the Premier League. He too adopts Bielsa's ideas, while relying on vertical football that seeks to reach goal in the fastest way possible.

The importance of this philosophy lies in the fact that it does not mean giving up possession or relying on deep defence. Rather it uses the ball in an attacking and effective manner, so that passes become a means of reaching dangerous areas and not merely a tool for maintaining possession figures.

This aspect aligns to a great extent with the footballing culture associated with Manchester United during the Ferguson era, when the team continuously sought to impose its tempo, press the opponent and attack quickly as soon as it regained the ball.

It also brings to mind some features of Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp, where speed, pressing and direct transition from defence to attack were essential elements in building a team capable of competing.

Pochettino's recent experience with the United States national team provided a clear model of the development of his tactical ideas, especially regarding the balance between attacking freedom and collective organisation.

Rather than imposing a fixed positioning on all the players, the Argentine granted the national team's players greater space to move and swap positions, while retaining a limited number of players assigned specific roles within the tactical structure.

The aim was to confuse teams that rely on positional defending, by forcing their players to make continuous decisions about the spaces that must be covered.

Thanks to freedom of movement, the United States midfielders became able to appear in the spaces between the opponents' defensive lines, and to receive the ball in comfortable positions that gave them enough time to make the appropriate decision.

Numerical proximity between the players in midfield also helped in executing short, well-crafted passes that drew the opponent towards the ball, before exploiting the spaces resulting from their movement.

At the same time, the movements off the ball contributed to widening the pitch and creating attacking channels, allowing the ball to be delivered to the forwards against a limited number of defenders.

Through-passes behind the defensive line were one of the most prominent tools Pochettino relied on, as the fast forward Folarin Balogun exploited the spaces resulting from opponents' pressing, and turned them into chances and goals.

Here the clear similarity between Pochettino's ideas and what Carrick tried to apply with Manchester United emerges, especially regarding flexibility in midfield, short passes, and exploiting the spaces behind the opponent's defence.

But the difference is not about the ideas alone. It is about the coach's ability to turn them into an integrated system that does not lose its balance when the circumstances of the match change.

Pochettino previously summed up his coaching philosophy in a clear phrase when he said in 2014: "My philosophy is based on giving players a freer style, while maintaining good organisation."

This sentence appears to be a key to understanding what the Argentine can offer Manchester United. Attacking freedom does not mean players move without controls, just as tactical flexibility does not mean giving up positioning and defensive responsibilities.

The success of this philosophy requires a clear structure that determines how players move, the spaces that must be exploited, the right timing to press, and the mechanism that allows the team to transition from attack to defence without losing its balance.

In the first half of Carrick's time in charge, United appeared in a proactive attacking guise, and relied on intense pressing with four players in the front line within a shape closer to 4-2-4.

This style gave the team a chance to regain the ball close to the opponent's goal. But it carried a great risk at the same time, because of the spaces left behind the pressing line.

Once opponents could read the movements and deal with the pressing, the team's difficulty in adapting to different scenarios began to appear, and United lost part of its attacking effectiveness.

The team's physical level also seemed to decline gradually, after it had reached a good state during the latter period of former coach Ruben Amorim's work, although that period saw a less congested fixture schedule due to the absence of European participation.

Here Pochettino will be required to address two problems at the same time: raising the level of physical fitness, and turning the high press from merely a collective surge into an organised system that can continue throughout the match.

Pochettino's task is not confined to developing the pressing method or improving the process of building play. It extends to finding attacking solutions against teams that retreat into their defensive areas and close the spaces in front of Manchester United's players.

Brighton under Fabian Hurzeler provide a model that confirms high pressing and possession are still capable of achieving success in the Premier League, after the team occupied second place in the standings, while recording the fourth-highest possession rate after ten rounds.

Reaching this level requires great tactical and physical work, especially as opponents have become more capable of dealing with intense pressing styles, compared with the situation a decade ago, when Pochettino made his success with Tottenham.

From here, the Argentine's ability to develop his ideas and add new solutions to his style will become a decisive factor in determining the fate of his experience with United.

He will also have to invest in the abilities of his forwards and grant them the freedom necessary to move and exploit spaces, without disrupting the collective balance.

Cole Palmer provides a clear example of the importance of this point, after he lived one of his best Premier League seasons under Pochettino at Chelsea.

The player said of his former coach: "He gave me the confidence and the freedom to move anywhere on the pitch, where I can employ my strengths."

Manchester United possess a group of forwards capable of producing distinguished levels. But their success with Pochettino will depend on their ability to take the initiative and manufacture individual solutions, and to benefit from the spaces the attacking system provides.

From a technical standpoint, Pochettino appears close to the footballing values that made Manchester United successful in the Ferguson era. He believes in pressing, initiative and fast attacking, but he does not want these principles to turn into rigid patterns that restrict the players' abilities.

He also possesses greater experience than Carrick in dealing with big teams, building tactical systems, and managing players with distinguished individual abilities.

Pochettino said while talking about his philosophy at Tottenham that "the most important thing is to create a tactical structure that gives players comfort and allows them to show their true abilities."

This is the challenge awaiting him at Old Trafford. Manchester United need a coach who gives his players freedom, but does not leave them without guidance, and asks them to press and attack, but provides them with the organisation that protects them from exposure.

If Pochettino succeeds in raising the physical rates, developing the pressing mechanisms, and giving his players varied solutions against compact defences, he may be able to achieve what Carrick could not, and return the team to the path of competition.

But if he fails to find the appropriate solutions when United are required to hold possession and create chances, he may find himself facing the same scenario that toppled previous coaching projects within the club.

In the end, Manchester United do not need a new coach who merely repeats old ideas, but a personality capable of turning those ideas into a successful system.

Between Pochettino's admiration for Ferguson and his influence from Bielsa, he appears to have the tools necessary to try to restore United's identity. But the difference between inspiration and real success will remain dependent on what he can produce on the pitch.