Mauricio Pochettino is a good choice for Manchester United: experienced, Premier League-tested, demanding. A shrewd coach and for one so tough at times, there is also something of the beguiling eccentric about him. A strain of mysticism that includes his devout belief in the energy exuded by a bowl of lemons.

Pochettino could be the man for United. But then you would struggle to find one managerial appointment outside the caretakers in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era that was not met initially with general optimism. Some unravelled more swiftly than others.

The challenge for all those post-Ferguson managers is broadly the same, but for each there have been certain details. This month, Pochettino is first obliged to guide his team out of the relegation zone but he is also thrust straight into the 2027-28 rebuild, which in turn has an effect on the present.

His captain, Bruno Fernandes, as well as Harry Maguire, Lisandro Martínez and Luke Shaw are all out of contract in the summer. That might feel like tomorrow’s problem but it is one which inevitably seeps into today.

A man of Pochettino’s experience could certainly handle a couple of restless stars, especially Shaw whom he nurtured at Southampton what seems a lifetime ago. But dealing with all four of them is a more difficult problem. Some he may have to mollify. A couple he might even nominate for renewal – there are options for the club to extend on all save Shaw. He also may have to excommunicate one.

It does not stop there. Marcus Rashford, Diogo Dalot, Mason Mount and Noussair Mazraoui are out of contract in the summer of 2028. The club are unlikely to renew any of them but there is the possibility that the effect of those impending departures is felt much earlier than the expiration of their contracts. All these players are required in the short term to rescue United’s current season, but they will know that is not the case in the long term.

Arriving at Tottenham Hotspur in 2014, Pochettino oversaw change immediately. Michael Dawson and the Brazilian midfielder Sandro left that summer and Emmanuel Adebayor departed in September on a mutually agreed deal. Over the season that followed, Pochettino would prepare the way for more to leave. His first Spurs captain, Younes Kaboul, as well as Paulinho, Roberto Soldado and Étienne Capoue all left in the summer of 2015.

Not many now are much more than a footnote in Spurs history but at the time they were well-paid senior players, many of whom had been bought with the proceeds of the Gareth Bale sale.

An underachieving Spurs in the mid-point of the previous decade looks simple alongside 2026 United. It has been another week of fierce recriminations – a mood of bleakness that suggests this club might never be fixed. The protracted departure of Michael Carrick has been held up as evidence that the club has lost its soul anew, as if these things are ever simple. The reality is that it would be hard for any manager to survive on one win from 10.

In the summer, the failure to raise money from sales meant that beyond the three major signings, no left-back or striker could be acquired. The return of Rashford loaded up the wage bill again. There have been the usual calls for a big January window although that is likely to be unrealistic.

Much fury is directed at Jason Wilcox, the director of football, and he will probably not get another chance if the Pochettino appointment does not deliver. Even so, not every Wilcox pick has been a bust. The signings of Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha, Senne Lammens and Benjamin Sesko, among others, helped to deliver third place last season. That spending also put a limit on what might be done since the turn of the year.

United were priced out of Antoine Semenyo in January and then Elliot Anderson this summer, by Manchester City, who may well have sensed it was time to bid high given what was coming their way from the Premier League. A Spurs ownership that had endured two 17th-place finishes was similarly determined on Mateus Fernandes.

Of course, the Glazer issue at the heart of the club remains. A different way for the support to rationalise it – without having to accept it – is that all clubs are burdened in their own way. Some simply wish to be bigger, wealthier, or in a country that has a television deal the size of that earned by the Premier League.

Chelsea’s stadium problem feels eternal. Spurs have not won a league title since John F Kennedy was US president. Arsenal and Liverpool just want to be as profitable as United. Real Madrid and Barcelona chafe against their member ownership model in a world of vast capital investment. Even Paris St-Germain and Bayern Munich must know that their domestic supremacies are just a bit weird and unhealthy. AC Milan are stranded in Serie A. Ajax cannot break out of the restrictions of the Dutch Eredivisie.

The great miracle of United is their extraordinary ability to generate revenue ahead of much more recently successful peers. Yet that is their curse too. If the Glazers had not spotted the cash-generating business could pay for their own acquisition, they would never have done it. Yet if United did not outgun every club financially, they just would not be United.

The Glazers endure. The minority stake, majority influence, Sir Jim Ratcliffe regime has not exactly solved all the problems of the last two decades, but everything it does is undertaken in the shadow of post-2005 Glazerism. Every convulsion at United leads to demands for their sale. Meanwhile, in the real world, all the club can do is play the hand they have been dealt.

Pochettino starts with a struggle to impose new standards immediately while managing some of his biggest names out the door. All against the backdrop of an ownership structure that has lost the faith of much of the support. But as Pochettino knows from years of coveting the United job, there are some serious advantages too. He will also know that at some point, one man has to get it right.