One Manchester United staffer tried to describe Erik ten Hag's thought process during the club's pre-season tour and could come up with three words: "football, football, football".
The 52-year-old was a source of fascination in Thailand and Australia but trying to peel back the layers of the inscrutable Dutchman proved a relatively futile task.
Ten Hag is a dominant presence in every room he's in and every setting he occupies but he usually achieves it through body language rather than words. He has become a more open communicator with the media but there can still be moments when the conversation dries up, of his own inclination.
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He fixes his inquisitor with eye contact and has an intense glare. You can see why he commands respect in the dressing room; at the moment, that is what he is getting.
Intense is an apposite word. Every United player who has spoken about Ten Hag's methods so far has used that phrase to describe him.
He can be blunt in dishing out orders and some people close to the squad believe he is challenging players by making them feel uncomfortable with his short conversations. His wrath for David de Gea kicking long was picked up by TV microphones during the game against Crystal Palace and in open training sessions, he has loudly told players when they fall below standards, including some of the youngsters on the tour of Thailand and Australia.
During training watched by 5,000 fans at the WACA in Perth, his name was being shouted by supporters but so involved was he in the session Ten Hag didn't hear them and didn't acknowledge them. He signed autographs at the end, once Steve McClaren had ushered him over, but his focus in four weeks of pre-season so far has been on the football.
He has kept media engagements to a minimum, for himself and his players, and told people who deal with that side of the club that "rest is training too". Double sessions were de rigueur but when they weren't the afternoon was earmarked for putting feet up, not speaking to the media or spending too much time sightseeing.
So far, this approach is working and in the games, there have been clear tactical improvements from the days of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick. Every training session comes with a theme and the evidence of their success has been laid out on the pitches in pre-season. Ten Hag's United have looked impressive this summer.
The former Ajax manager was lauded for a detailed approach in the Netherlands and he's translated that to Manchester. Players have been impressed with the focus and eye for detail he's brought to training and feel they are benefitting from it. He doesn't miss a beat in training, something that can't necessarily be said for his predecessors.
The concern inside the dressing room when his appointment was confirmed in April was his ability to manage the club, as well as coach the players. That has been tested already with the Cristiano Ronaldo saga this summer, but Ten Hag is coming out of it well for now.
This is still the honeymoon, however, and greater challenges lie ahead. For a start, the final month of the transfer window could be decisive for this season and for relations between Ten Hag and the football decision makers, such as John Murtough.
The additions of Tyrell Malacia, Christian Eriksen and Lisandro Martinez are a good start, but United have left their most important deals to last. An awful lot hinges on the pursuit of Frenkie de Jong and a forward.
The De Jong deal is becoming a risk for United. Ten Hag clearly wants the player and for all the talk that he doesn't want to come to Old Trafford, the club wouldn't have spent almost 12 weeks working on a transfer without some kind of conviction that the 25-year-old was ready to move.
A deal remains out of reach, however, and De Jong is in dispute with Barcelona over deferred wages. Ten Hag plans to mould a player from his existing ranks to fill the gap in his midfield if a transfer isn't completed but given the time spent over talks, he will have every right to be frustrated if that happens.
At Ajax, Ten Hag benefitted from a strong relationship with sporting director Marc Overmars. He's clearly been allowed to define United's transfer strategy this summer, which is a risk in itself. If the signings from the Eredivisie flop then it will damage Ten Hag on and off the pitch.
This is where the biggest challenge lies. Pre-season has brought positivity, with a clear style developing, a manager unifying the dressing room and players improving for the coaching, but there will be limits to United's ambition this season.
The transfer window has offered limited improvement to the squad so far and a week before the season begins United must still be considered outsiders for a top-four finish. Manchester City and Liverpool look uncatchable, Tottenham will surely kick on under Antonio Conte and Chelsea still have an excellent squad, even if pre-season has brought difficulties.
For United to pose a threat to that quartet a strong start feels essential. Brighton at home and Brentford away is a relatively soft beginning and six points is a must, with Liverpool up next. Ten Hag needs to keep the momentum he has built rolling.
If results start to go awry then the character traits that have impressed could easily be turned against him. It's worth noting that his relationships with Donny van de Beek and De Jong at Ajax weren't always rosy. Results eventually trumped everything but Ten Hag isn't the easiest to get on with, an idiosyncrasy that can be lived with if the players can see he's making them better.
In his sit-down interview with the travelling press in Melbourne, he was bullish about his chances of success at Old Trafford, despite the evidence of the previous nine years that suggests this is a club that devours managers, no matter how big a name they are.
"Everywhere I've been I've got the maximum out of my teams," Ten Hag said then. It already looks like he will get more out of this team than Solskjaer or Rangnick managed.
He feels like a good fit for what this club needs right now, but the danger of pre-season is that it's easy to be swept along on a tidal wave of positivity. Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Solskjaer and even Rangnick felt like what United needed at the time. None of them could stop the rot.
Ten Hag is convinced he can. It doesn't take long in his company to realise he doesn't lack self-belief. He has brought authority back to the position of Manchester United manager. But as the countdown to the new season enters its final week, now it really is all about the "football, football, football".
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