Among this week’s infinite parodies of Manchester United was a mock video of Sir Jim Ratcliffe interviewing for the manager’s job from a waiting room of Mr Bean, Mr Blobby, Krusty the Clown and Ronald McDonald. Who of sound mind, after all, would countenance such a hospital pass? A prospective candidate merely needed to study the club’s classless treatment of Michael Carrick before deciding to run a mile. The soulless 143-word statement confirming the exit of a United legend reflected the same lack of accountability that had brought us here, with none of Ratcliffe, chief executive Omar Berrada or technical director Jason Wilcox putting their names to it. Instead, it was coldly ascribed to the communications department.

But still, with the safety of an ocean between him and the tumult at Old Trafford, Mauricio Pochettino backs himself to be the saviour. After two final games in charge of the United States national team, he will take over as United’s eighth full-time manager in 13 years – 12th, if you count those enlisted just to hold the fort. In that time they have dabbled with every conceivable type of would-be Messiah, from eccentric disciplinarian Louis van Gaal to proven super-coach José Mourinho, from business-minded Ralf Rangnick to tactically unbending Ruben Amorim. All have been consumed by the bonfire. Except now the three stooges at the top calculate that Pochettino, who appeals to purists through his commitment to attacking football and to hipsters through his Hugo Boss shirts and shaggy hair, will make everything right again.

Pochettino deserves his popularity, having built a reputation for a dynamic, high-pressing style and for promoting the finest academy talents. He has also proved, by taking Tottenham to a Champions League final, what he can do when constrained by owners reluctant to splash the cash. The problem with the cult of “Poch” is that you are seldom sure how much of it is based on truly elite pedigree, and how much on glossy publicity. For a manager so feted across his 15 years in club management, it is curious that his only silverware has come in the form of three French domestic trophies, all achieved thanks to vast Qatari bankrolling at Paris St-Germain.

His strongest asset at this harrowing moment for United is perhaps his imperviousness to pressure. Faced with the scandal of Donald Trump’s World Cup meddling, where the US president engineered the overturning of Folarin Balogun’s red card and poisoned the atmosphere around the host nation’s campaign, Pochettino survived not just with his own good name intact, but with a fresh four-year contract. In theory, that bruising episode should equip him to navigate the United tempest. And yet it is a long way from steering the US through the first leg of a Concacaf Nations League quarter-final, as he will attempt to do in Miami on Saturday night, to confronting Liverpool with United in the relegation zone, as he will at Anfield next Sunday.

The great imponderable is whether Pochettino will be given the freedom or the resources to produce the requisite impact. Amorim lamented that he never had that luxury, with Wilcox persuading him to abandon his love of playing three at the back. “I came here to be the manager of Manchester United, not to be the coach,” he said, writing his death warrant at the club. If similar restrictions are placed on Pochettino’s philosophy, it will be a recipe for meltdown. He is not the kind to dial down his physical demands, even if it stretches United’s more lackadaisical players beyond breaking point. And if he asks for them to be replaced in January, he is unlikely to take kindly to Ratcliffe telling him there are no funds available.

An immediate revolution feels certain. You cannot envisage Pochettino putting up for long with the back four that Carrick ended up with in his last game against Aston Villa. A line-up of Patrick Dorgu, Noussair Mazraoui, Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven is hardly the line-up anybody would choose to help United fight their way out of the bottom three. No wonder Gary Neville is urging the incoming manager to demand a guarantee of two defenders in the next transfer window before he commits to anything. But given the shelf life of United managers in the Ineos era, he might be better advised to thrash out the golden handshake to which he will be entitled after 18 months.

In kinder circumstances, Pochettino could be a dream-weaver. As he proved at Tottenham, he has the charisma and the commitment to take an entire fanbase with him on an improbable path. He is quite the contradiction, combining the toughness befitting a former Argentina centre-half with an image-consciousness that has put him on the front of several fashion magazines. But in United’s warped reality, is this enough? The club are only turning to him in desperation, paying £7m to prise him out of his US deal when they could have had him for free after the World Cup, and even today Ratcliffe is too intransigent to grant him carte blanche.

So, Pochettino will be answering to a part-owner every bit as obstinate as he is, plus a director of football whose only managerial experience is at youth level. What could possibly go wrong? At one level, he is leaving the US job to fulfil an ambition that has consumed him for a decade. At another, he is running away to join the circus, seduced by all United’s lustre but fated, like so many before him, to be launched out like a human cannonball.