Former Espanyol, Tottenham Hotspur and Paris Saint Germain boss Mauricio Pochettino has announced his retirement from management amid interest from Aston Villa.
Sources claim Pochettino was being lined up to replace Steven Gerrard who has so far struggled to replicate the early promise he showed while managing in a Highland pub league.
The Argentine left his most recent job at Ligue 1 outfit PSG in the summer after failing to win the Champions League with a front three of Messi, Mbappé and Neymar.
In announcing the decision, he told Paddy Power News: ‘In light of the recent speculation linking me to the Aston Villa job, I have decided to spend my Saturday afternoons being dragged around Waitrose by the missus instead’.
Pochettino managed 598 games across his career, with his longest spell being at Spurs between 2014 and 2019 in which he won 159 of his 293 matches in charge.
‘Villa? F**king Villa?!’ the 50-year-old former Saints boss fumed on hearing of the reports.
‘I was leading Tottenham to Champions League final while that mob were chucking cabbages at Steve Bruce in the Championship!’
‘Four months out of the game and your stock falls so badly you go from being linked with Juventus to being tipped as Steven Gerrard’s successor?
‘F**k that. I’ll book a cruise or spend more time in the garden’.
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Indeed, Paddy Power News understands Pochettino became so incensed by the links with the Villa hotseat he booked in to have a Birmingham City FC tattoo that covers his entire back.
Meanwhile, with Steven Gerrard’s sacking imminent, Frank Lampard has taken out a two-page ad in the Liverpool Echo thanking his ‘spiritual son’ Mason Mount for scoring the goals which ended the Villa boss’ tenure.
‘How fitting it was you my son, who put this longstanding Lampard V Gerrard debate to bed’, wrote Lampard.
‘Maybe one day, if your career nosedives, we can be together again at Everton.
‘Until we meet again, yours, Pappa Franky’, he concluded.
*Paddy Power’s breaking news coverage is just complete nonsense, every word of it. Honest.
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