Manchester United are expected to part ways with Michael Carrick before the end of this international break, and Mauricio Pochettino has pushed to the front of the queue to replace him.

That is the picture painted by reports in England on Monday, with The Athletic reporting that the United hierarchy spent the day in extended talks over Carrick’s future. Club officials insist no final decision has been made. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, according to talkSPORT’s Ben Jacobs, is expected to lead a meeting in Monaco on Tuesday that would confirm Carrick’s departure.

Pochettino’s name is the one the betting market and much of the English football media are now landing on. The Argentine signed a four-year USMNT contract in August that runs through the 2030 World Cup, and on paper that should be the end of it. In practice, several outlets now report he would be open to the Old Trafford job if it were offered to him.

A release clause in the USMNT deal

The Overlap’s chief football correspondent Mike Keegan was the first to report that Pochettino’s new USMNT contract contains a release clause. talkSPORT has since put the figure at around £10 million. US Soccer has not confirmed the amount.

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Pochettino himself has not spoken publicly about the Manchester United vacancy. His most recent on-the-record comments about an eventual Premier League return came in a September interview with Sky Sports News, which Sports Illustrated reprinted this week as it made him its bookmakers’ favorite for the United job.

“I have the ambition. My dream now is to be in the USA for four years, but after that, why not?” Pochettino told Sky Sports News.

He also told Sports Illustrated that the structure of the new USMNT deal was looser than his previous arrangement.

“Now it’s a four-year contract, it’s different. We can next season lose the Copa América, or the Gold Cup, and they’re not happy with us, they can sack us,” he told SI.

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Carrick: ‘It’s not going to happen’

Carrick, who was handed the job permanently in January after an interim spell, has three wins in 15 matches in all competitions this season. United slipped into the Premier League’s bottom three after a 4-4 draw with Aston Villa on Sunday. Asked afterwards whether he would resign, the former midfielder was blunt.

“It’s not going to happen, no,” Carrick told Sky Sports.

Eddie Howe and Julian Nagelsmann remain in United’s conversation, with Antonio Conte and Unai Emery also discussed internally. But Pochettino is the bookmakers’ favorite and, according to the English reporting, the name INEOS is weighing most seriously. United face Liverpool at Anfield after the international break.

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