The United States squad learned that their manager is being linked with Manchester United the same way everyone else did. There was no internal briefing and no heads-up, according to the Fulham defender in the middle of it.
“That news got sprung on all of us like the rest of the world,” Antonee Robinson said in camp media availability on Tuesday, as reported by USA TODAY.
Robinson did not treat the link as a problem. He treated it as a compliment the squad is happy to collect.
“For us to have a manager who gets linked to those sorts of jobs means we’re very lucky we’re working with a top-level manager,” he said.
What Manchester United Have and Have Not Said
The layer underneath Robinson’s quotes is still reporting, not official fact. The Athletic’s David Ornstein reported on Monday that United intend to relieve Michael Carrick of his duties and are working on a replacement.
United’s own public position, as Ornstein also reported, is that no final decision has been taken and nothing is set in stone. Pochettino is reported to be the leading candidate. Manchester United have confirmed none of it.
Pochettino himself has not addressed the reports publicly, and U.S. Soccer has issued no statement on them. Robinson is, so far, the only voice from inside the United States setup to speak on the link.
Pochettino signed a new four-year contract with U.S. Soccer after the World Cup, running through the 2030 tournament. He has also spoken openly in the past about wanting to return to club football, and to the Premier League in particular.
Why a Fulham Player Is Fielding United Questions
Robinson is the Premier League regular in that dressing room, and his national-team manager’s future is a Premier League story. That is why a Fulham left-back spent part of his Tuesday answering for events at Old Trafford.
His answer on the uncertainty was a player’s answer. He said he does not look at Pochettino as “being in limbo with jobs,” and that players are used to fast-changing environments at club and country level.
“As a soccer player, I’m pretty used to sort of fast-changing environments,” he said. “So we’re all very good at just focusing on the next task at hand and the next game coming up.”
The Test Comes on Saturday
The strongest of Robinson’s claims is also the one about to be tested. “But that never seems to leak into the work we do, whether it’s the World Cup or whether it’s this camp,” he said.
The United States play Haiti in Miami on Saturday, November 14, in the first leg of a Nations League quarterfinal, with the second leg in Cincinnati on November 17. A semifinal place and direct qualification for the 2027 Gold Cup ride on the tie.
Robinson’s own focus, stated plainly, is the weekend. “We’ve got a game for the weekend and I’m going to do everything I can to be ready to play for him,” he said.
For Fulham supporters, the takeaway is simpler. Their left-back is fit, starting for his country, and entirely unbothered by the loudest managerial story in England.
