Thomas Tuchel has put Manchester United on notice with next job breakthrough
Thomas Tuchel is reportedly in talks with the FA over succeeding Gareth Southgate as England manager.
The former Bayern Munich and Chelsea manager has been out of work since leaving the German heavyweights at the end of last season. In the summer, Tuchel met with Ineos and Sir Jim Ratcliffe about the prospect of potentially taking over as Manchester United manager.
Eventually, it was decided that United should stick with Erik ten Hag, for the time-being, considering Tuchel had a desire to take a break from football following his Munich departure. Tuchel's name returned to the United fold last week when The Manchester Evening News reported the 51-year-old was being lined-up as a potential replacement for Ten Hag should the decision to sack him come.
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Last Tuesday, Ineos' executives, including Ratcliffe, Omar Berrada and Dan Ashworth attended what was deemed to be a 'routine' meeting in London. That meeting, which lasted seven hours, discussed a range of issues at United including the future of their manager.
Since then, there has been no official word from Ineos about Ten Hag, and the presumption is that he will continue to lead the club this weekend when United play Brentford. However, if they do want to hire Tuchel as his proposed replacement, Ineos will need to work quickly with a different opportunity lurking.
Sky Sports understands the FA have chosen to accelerate their search for Southgate's successor after Lee Carsley's desire to return to the U21s was communicated during the international break, coupled with England's 2-1 defeat to Greece in the Nations League. It's said that Tuchel is the preferred candidate at present and he could be announced as the new manager shortly, should negotiations go to plan.
Pep Guardiola is thought to be widely admired at the FA, too, but the Manchester City manager is not believed to be an 'active candidate' for the national team role at this time.