Manchester United have left it too late to copy Man City and Liverpool FC manager trick

When assessing Manchester United's post-Sir Alex Ferguson decline the headline charge is usually the £1billion transfer spend that has produced an FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League, but players can't win trophies on their own and if on-pitch recruitment has been average, the appointment of managers in that time has been disastrous.

United are searching for a fifth permanent manager since the exit of Ferguson in 2013 but there is little confidence they will get it right, although if there is any hope it is in the changing faces of the decision-makers, with Richard Arnold now installed as chief executive and football director John Murtough seeing his powerbase grow.

Current interim boss Ralf Rangnick is also likely to have a say on the identity of the new boss and if he'd had a voice in previous discussions it's unlikely he'd have endorsed the candidacy of two managers who were never equipped to manage Manchester United and two who looked to be on the downward arc of their careers, assessments proved correct by their struggles at Old Trafford.

David Moyes and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer must have felt like they'd won the Lottery when they got the gig, appointed by a club that claims to be the biggest in the world when none of their rivals would have made the same decisions. Sandwiched between them was the stardust of Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho.

Van Gaal and Mourinho had both been sacked from their previous club jobs before being given the keys to Old Trafford and there was a sense at the beginning that both had their best days behind them. Since leaving United Van Gaal has returned to international management and Mourinho has been sacked for the third job in a row, this time by Tottenham. He's now doing a reasonable