When Mourinho was fired last month, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino emerged as favorite as the long-term successor. But Solskjaer is staking a strong claim to make his loan move from Molde permanent after winning this unofficial audition against Pochettino.
"It's not ethical to talk about what he is doing or what I [am] doing," Pochettino said. "It was a game and a battle between Tottenham and Manchester United, because if not, we would need to play him against me, one vs one on the pitch."
Pochettino's target is securing a fourth consecutive top-four finish to qualify for the Champions League in a season of disruption with the delay to move from Wembley to the club's new stadium at White Hart Lane.
But Tottenham has now lost back-to-back league home games for the first time since 2015 at the end of Pochettino's first season. The team remains third in the standings, a point ahead of Chelsea, two points behind defending champion Manchester City and nine adrift of leader Liverpool.
City isn't in action until Monday night against Wolverhampton Wanderers. There was one other Premier League game yesterday, with Everton beating Bournemouth 2-0. Goals from Kurt Zouma and Dominic Calvert-Lewin gave the Merseyside club only its second win in nine Premier League matches.
It came at the end of a week when Everton majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri, while backing manager Marco Silva, told the annual meeting that the season so far was "not good enough". Everton is now up to 10th in the standings, three points ahead of Bournemouth, which has lost nine of its last 12 league games.
- AP
