It is one of those delicious little quirks of fate that Mauricio Pochettino will be in Manchester on Tuesday. Whether he is in the city more permanently come next season, or possibly sooner, remains to be seen but there are strong indications that Pochettino is extremely keen to become the manager of Manchester United.

This week’s fixture takes him to the Etihad where Paris St-Germain will face Manchester City in what will be regarded as a play-off to determine which of them tops their Champions League group. It is a big, big game and the PSG hierarchy will certainly be irritated by the United talk.

Pochettino’s time, so far, as PSG’s head coach has been a chequered one. He has achieved the incongruous feat of failing to win the French league and yet knocking out Barcelona and Bayern Munich and almost taking the club to a Champions League final, losing to City in the semis.

At the same time, Pochettino has faced fierce criticism over his tactics, whether or not he has developed a style of play or integrated at PSG, and whether he can control the egos within the dressing room, starting with what he has termed the “three kings” of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.

Meanwhile, the murmurings from those around him are that he has been less than enamoured by how little control he has been afforded – although he should not have been surprised by that – which has hampered implementing the football he wants. One example is the signing of Gianluigi Donnarumma, which has given him a selection headache because he endorsed Keylor Navas as his No1 goalkeeper by urging him to sign a new contract.

The fact that Pochettino still lives in a hotel, along with his trusted coaching staff, more than 10 months after arriving in Paris has not banished the impression that he is only passing through, even if PSG triggered the one-year extension in his contract last summer amid interest from his old club Tottenham Hotspur.

It means Pochettino is contracted to PSG until June 2023 and they will ensure he leaves on their terms, even if there is little sense that he will see out his deal. Failing in (or, indeed, winning) the Champions League this season would offer both parties a natural break at the end of the campaign, although waiting until then could be uncomfortable.

Pochettino is also aware that PSG did eventually allow Carlo Ancelotti to leave, while under contract, to become Real Madrid coach in 2013 after initially declaring it was “impossible”.

It may even suit all parties if Pochettino goes. If he is unhappy there is little point trying to keep him, especially as the readily available Zinedine Zidane, given his love for Marseille, seems less averse to taking over at PSG than he once did.

What is clear is that Pochettino, when he does leave PSG, wants to return to the Premier League. His wife, Karina, lives in the family home in London while one of his two sons, Maurizio, plays for Watford and the other, Sebastiano, is part of his father’s coaching team.

The possibility of Pochettino ending up at United has been a point of debate ever since that famous lunch he shared with Sir Alex Ferguson five years ago at Scott’s, the Mayfair restaurant. The pair talked football over a £114 bottle of Brunello di Montalcino red wine and it appeared then that he was being anointed as a future United manager.

In the short-term, the revelation of that lunch date led to something else – new five-year contracts were signed at Tottenham by Pochettino and his staff and his job title was changed from ‘head coach’ to ‘manager’.

The importance of the meeting was played down (obviously), but while it was certainly beneficial to Pochettino it was something Ferguson also felt was worthwhile. He was intrigued by the work the dynamic young coach was doing at Spurs and would have been aware of the inferences drawn from meeting with him.

In the event, Pochettino did not succeed Louis van Gaal and while he was certainly far more prominent in United’s thinking when Jose Mourinho was sacked, he did not get that job either, partly, it appeared, because the compensation was too high and the timing not quite right. Neither did United act when he was out of work between being sacked by Spurs in November 2019 and taking over at PSG just over a year later. It should also be noted that while Ferguson’s influence is important, he is not the king-maker at Old Trafford as he was when David Moyes succeeded him in 2013.

But what now? Certainly Pochettino regards United as his kind of project and they may be a better fit, in fact, than PSG. In Paris, success is to a degree guaranteed so it is only how you win that matters – unless you bring home the holy grail of the Champions League. There is little credit for the coach.

If he is enamoured with United then it would be hardly surprising. After all, there are three guarantees with the job at Old Trafford: first, there will be significant resources available; second, he will be given sufficient time; and third, most crucially of all for a coach who will back his own abilities, it would be remarkable to be the one who finally brings success back following the fallow post-Ferguson years.

And what does success look like? Obviously United have to win trophies but nobody expects dominance in this era. And Pochettino will feel that United’s squad could be swiftly revived, and their core of young stars influenced by a man who is more comfortable working with youth and developing talent. Dare it be said, but he also fits the notion of that famed “cultural re-boot”.

Should United pursue Pochettino they should also bear in mind what Thomas Tuchel has done at Chelsea. The German also fell short at PSG but that has not detracted from the fact that he is an exceptional coach. United may have their reservations about Pochettino but, surely, he has to be prominent in their thoughts at the third time of asking.