Pochettino's Man Utd To-Do List: 2026/27 Priorities

So it's finally happening. Mauricio Pochettino walks through the doors at Old Trafford with a mandate that would make lesser managers flinch - and the scale of Pochettino's Man Utd to-do list is already the talk of the terraces. This isn't a tweak job. It's a full culture transplant at a club that has spent the best part of a decade lurching from one identity crisis to the next. He inherits a dressing room that is bloated, unbalanced and bruised by years of stop-start projects, plus a fanbase that has been promised the moon more times than it cares to count. Every detail of Pochettino's Man Utd to-do list starts with one question: can he be the first man since Sir Alex Ferguson to actually finish the job?

The Squad Rebuild: Clearing the Deadwood Before Anything Else

The first item on Pochettino's Man Utd to-do list is the most brutal: decide who is part of the next three years and who is just a squad-filler on a comfortable contract. The dressing room is top-heavy in the wrong areas and thin in the right ones - too many senior players on wages that reflect reputation rather than output, and not enough genuine starters in the spine of the team.

The sequence matters. Outgoings first, arrivals second. Identify three or four high-earners whose exits unlock both the wage bill and the transfer budget, then reinvest that money in three targeted fixes: a commanding centre-back partner, a midfield destroyer who can actually cover ground, and a striker who presses like his life depends on it. That spine has been missing for years. No tactical system survives without it.

Where funds are tight, the academy is the fastest win available - and it happens to be Pochettino's calling card. His reputation for trusting young players is the cheapest momentum-builder in football. Between the young talent knocking on the door and the underperforming seniors blocking it, the message should be simple and loud: train like your place depends on it, because it does. Any serious working draft of Pochettino's Man Utd to-do list starts with the squad, not the tactics.

> 📊 Three spine positions, one window - A commanding centre-back, a ball-winning midfielder and a pressing striker are the minimum viable intake for this rebuild.

Tactical Identity: Taking the Handbrake Off

The Pressing Reboot

Selling the squad on front-foot, high-intensity pressing is the easy part in a meeting room. Getting them to do it in February, when the legs are heavy and the table is tight, is the hard part - and half this group has spent years playing reactive, safety-first football. The pressing reboot only works if everyone buys in, from the front man to the goalkeeper.

Defining the midfield structure comes next: the double pivot, the inverted full-back question, and deciding who carries the ball through the lines. These aren't details - they're the difference between a coherent side and a collection of individuals. Then there's the set-piece overhaul. United leak goals from corners and offer practically nothing from their own. A specialist set-piece coach pays for himself inside a season, and this is one of the most straightforward entries on Pochettino's Man Utd to-do list.

Earning the Dressing Room

Pochettino's core skill has always been people management, and he'll need every ounce of it. Senior players have been burned by years of musical chairs in the dugout - trust must be rebuilt, not demanded. The trick is to set hard non-negotiables on effort and conduct and make examples early, not in November when the season is already slipping.

The captaincy is a live issue. Decide who speaks for the players, and whether the current skipper survives the summer. Get that wrong and the dressing room fractures quietly before it fractures loudly. Every element of Pochettino's Man Utd to-do list runs through the players' willingness to follow - and that currency is earned, never given.