While Erik ten Hag’s future has been shadowed by a disappointing run of one win in seven Premier League games, the Dutchman may find that his position in the Manchester United dugout strengthens in the coming days.

According to our count, 15 managers have been associated with the Old Trafford job in recent weeks and months, including Graham Potter, Thiago Motta, Gareth Southgate, Simone Inzaghi, and Roberto de Zerbi.

For the majority of Manchester United supporters, one name stands out right away. He may not have a proven track record of success in English football, like Potter or De Zerbi, both of whom did wonders at Brighton, and he may not have an existing relationship with a number of current Red Devils players, like England manager Southgate does.

However, if neither Potter, De Zerbi, nor Southgate can be classified as true, clear enhancements on a man who, let us not forget, broke United’s six-year trophy drought last season, you can’t say the same about Julian Nagelsmann.

Julian Nagelsmann on Manchester United’s radar

Nagelsmann is still only 36 years old, yet his extensive expertise belies his youth. He has nearly a decade of experience as a head coach. And his CV portrays the picture of a manager who belongs among the elite of the tactical game, making his dismissal by Bayern Munich in March 2023 all the more perplexing given how far the German giants have fallen since he was replaced in the dugout by Thomas Tuchel.

Nagelsmann, one of football’s great innovators with an almost Guardiola-esque tendency for extracting career-best performances out of players who were previously regarded as ‘good’ rather than ‘great’, also had Bayern’s fourth-best victory rate (71%).

And, with Nagelsmann’s agent confirming that talks are underway to bring the former Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig manager back to the Allianz Arena when Tuchel departs this summer, the club’s new owners appear to have acknowledged that their predecessors (including Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidzic) made a mistake in letting the boyhood Bayern fan leave.

“(Nagelsmann’s future) will be decided shortly. “In the next five, six, seven days,” Volker Struth told Sky Sports, emphasizing that Bayern are not the only club in talks.

“It would be pure insanity to imply that we are not speaking with interested parties without revealing their identities. All I can say is that it isn’t only Bayern Munich.

“It would be a joke to say we are not in talks. Of course, we are in talks.”