Pochettino to commit ‘sackable offence’ at Man Utd in January swoop for Zidane con artist

Mauricio Pochettino is on course to commit a “sackable offence” at Manchester United in January, as he swoops for someone who’s most recently pulled the wool over Zinedine Zidane’s eyes.

For all the suspect decisions made by the Chelsea directors in the transfer market, they sold brilliantly in the summer.

Despite spending £350m on new signings, the Blues made a sizeable profit. They got £50m from Nottingham Forest for Liam Delap, Como paid £30m for Trevoh Chalobah and although they might rather have kept Enzo Fernandez – and certainly made a blunder in not sourcing a replacement – £125m for a very good but not great midfielder was more than decent business.

But there was one sale that took the biscuit. They couldn’t believe their luck when Manchester United came calling for Andrey Santos; the only danger was in saying yes too quickly to an offer of twice what they wanted for the Brazilian.

It’s hard to know who to blame for the fuzzy transfer thinking at United. Director of football Jason Wilcox has copped his fair share after being called out directly by Lisandro Martinez.

But Christopher Vivell’s surely got to shoulder the Santos blame given the midfielder was signed by Chelsea while he was technical director and by United while in his current role as head of recruitment.

“Can I throw one player at you? And this is no disrespect to the boy, because he’s not a bad player, but whoever brought in Andrey Santos, that for me is a sackable offence,” an irrefutably disrespectful Jamie Redknapp said on The Overlap Daily this week.

“He is not a Manchester United player. He’s a decent player, he’s okay. But they brought [Youri] Tielemans in just after it.

“What makes them think, ‘Okay, I’m going to get two midfield players’, when I’ve got [Kobbie] Mainoo there – three very similar players that haven’t got any athleticism to get round the pitch?”

Steven Gerrard agreed that he’s “not a Manchester United player”, while other pundits have questioned – as the Blues directors evidently did too – why United paid £50m for a Chelsea squad player.

But lo and behold, they’re threatening to do the very same thing again.

United can take comfort in Liverpool and Manchester City also holding a perplexing interested in Malo Gusto, who’s reportedly been told to find a new club by Xabi Alonso having not started a Premier League game since mid-September as he’s been a liability for the majority of his time at the club.

Perhaps least of all – and this goes a long way towards explaining United entering the three-horse race – under Mauricio Pochettino at Stamford Bridge, who’s already got a shortlist as long as his arm for the January transfer window at Old Trafford.

No full-back played more than Gusto’s 37 games in Pochettino’s time at Chelsea and the frenchman laid on nine assists in what was a promising period which almost all Blues fans would now insist flattered to deceive.

Zinedine Zidane got Gusto-ed last week when the Chelsea right-back made a terrible challenge to concede a penalty in an all-round woeful performance for France in their 3-1 defeat to Italy.

Such widespread interest in Gusto, which goes beyond the Premier League with Como and Atletico Madrid also said to be keeping tabs, will be as baffling to Chelsea fans as him being called up to represent one of the best national teams in world football.

Maybe there’s something we’re not seeing that Zidane and the recruitment chiefs at these big clubs are. Gusto’s clearly a very skilful footballer with a lot of the qualities you want in a full-back – speed, crossing ability, a nice touch – but he’s not someone you want by your side in the trenches; he would be taking a toilet break when it came time to go over the top.

That’s not the sort of player that Pochettino should be vouching and pushing for in his bid to fix a broken dressing room at United, particularly at Chelsea’s absurd £75m price point, lest he wants to be accused of committing a “sackable offence” a couple of months into Gusto’s United career.