Manchester United hope they have finally found their answer to Jurgen Klopp.
That is the gamble in appointing Erik ten Hag, a man who comes with so many unknowns, particularly in comparison to Mauricio Pochettino. But that is also the allure.
Pochettino is proven in the Premier League, but also proven to have failed to win the title when in a two-horse race with Leicester.
Proven to have been unable to arrest Tottenham’s alarming slide that ultimately cost him his job. That is, of course, a very simplistic assessment of his time in England.
He was also proven to have handled his transition to this country by turning Southampton into one of the most watchable teams in the top-flight.
Proven to have nurtured individual talents at Spurs, regularly competing at the top of the table and reaching the Champions League Final in 2019 – famously at the expense of Ten Hag’s Ajax. If he lasts the course at Paris Saint-Germain this season, he will be a title-winner.
Yet Ten Hag has emerged from a series of talks as the man United want to lead them into a new era. And for all the due diligence of football director John Murtough and technical director Darren Fletcher, perhaps it is the mystery surrounding the Dutchman that gives him the edge.
United cannot know if he will be able to adapt to the Premier League after a career spent in the Netherlands and Germany. They cannot know if he can handle a club of such stature that even managerial heavyweights like Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho were swallowed up by the expectation.
They cannot know how he will cope with the egos in a dressing room full of fabulously wealthy young men, nor how those players will react to him.
He is not the safe option, yet feels like the populist one, given the clamour on social media to declare him the next big thing. That is what new chief executive Richard Arnold is banking on.
His predecessor Ed Woodward spent the majority of his reign regretting his failure to lure Klopp to United, with his ‘adult Disneyland’ pitch now becoming the stuff of legend.
He watched the German do to Liverpool what a succession of managers failed to replicate at Old Trafford, waking them from their slumber and turning them into a super power.
Even now, Klopp is the most perfect choice for United in terms of personality, leadership and his brand of football. More so even than Pep Guardiola.
Klopp just gets it – and, the uncomfortable truth is that he probably got precisely what United were when rejecting Woodward’s advances.
Can Ten Hag be Klopp mark two? That is the bet being made by Arnold, Murtough and Fletcher. For a start, the football is right.
It is about risk, relentless attacking and bravery on the ball. It is proactive in the form of a Klopp or a Guardiola, rather than reactive like a Mourinho.
It is of the school of dominating possession – as would be expected of a Dutchman – but not the type of risk-averse fare that so turned United fans off during Van Gaal’s reign.
Ten Hag gives freedom to his most exciting talents to showcase their skills. Jadon Sancho should be a big beneficiary and Marcus Rashford may rediscover himself under a coach who will nurture his attacking qualities, which have been lost over the past 18 months.
Hakim Ziyech and Donny van de Beek are two players who have failed to replicate the form they showed under Ten Hag since leaving Ajax. Van de Beek will welcome his arrival at Old Trafford after being bafflingly under-used since joining United.
Ten Hag has taken the fans along with him on his Ajax journey and United are in need of a ringmaster at Old Trafford who they can truly get behind.
Their fans are good at supporting their managers, even if they have been tested by the thin gruel offered up post-Sir Alex Ferguson.
Van Gaal and Mourinho tried to re-educate them in what they should expect as supporters of the biggest club in the land.
Neither could put up particularly convincing arguments – Mourinho snarling, and Van Gaal just never quite getting the sense of jeopardy that keeps them coming back to Old Trafford.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer did – and arguably provided supporters with more memorable moments than those two predecessors combined – but did not possess the coaching or managerial qualities to deliver trophies.
Ten Hag is a proven winner in the Netherlands, but that record comes with a ‘but’ for that very reason. Ajax are the biggest and the richest, so success comes hand in hand. That is why that Champions League run is so instructive.
The irony, of course, is that Pochettino’s Tottenham reached the final at Ajax’s expense. What is the greater achievement?
Pochettino plays progressive, aggressive football. Ask Spurs fans if he has the charisma to make people follow him.
It is hard to think of a box Ten Hag ticks that the Argentine does not. Well, that is, all except one – the element of the unknown.
