Pochettino and the paradox at PSG, a club that is almost unmanageable

There is probably only one thing a manager can do at Paris Saint-Germain that would enhance his reputation, which is to win the Champions League – and even then there would be plenty of people looking at the £900m net spend since the Qatari takeover in 2011 and thinking: “About time.” Mauricio Pochettino has not done that.

If, as seems likely despite his insistence this week he is staying, he leaves PSG in the summer, he does so with the blot of a rare second-placed league finish on his record. He will at least have answered the criticism that he had never won silverware – collecting last season’s Coupe de France and this season’s Ligue 1 title – but that jibe was always largely meaningless; leading Tottenham to third, second and third in successive seasons, and to the second-highest points tally in their top-flight history (adjusting for two/three points for a win and size of the division), is a greater achievement.

Related: What Real Madrid do shouldn’t work but yet again they are still standing | Jonathan Wilson

But there is a sense now that Pochettino’s status has diminished over his two years in France. Even offering all the usual caveats about social media polls, it is remarkable that when Gary Neville asked his Twitter following last month whether they would prefer Manchester United to appoint Pochettino or Erik ten Hag, 82% went for the manager with no Premier League experience.

Of course the failure to win the league last season must count against Pochettino. PSG’s budget is roughly double that of its nearest rivals; it is a sad fact of the economics of modern French football that if PSG do not win the league it is a failure. That Pochettino was there for only half the season isn’t really an excuse.

The