There is no doubt that if there was any chance that Paris Saint-Germain would have allowed Mauricio Pochettino to leave last November then he would be the Manchester United manager right now.

Pochettino was the first-choice to succeed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer when he was finally sacked. He was the clear, outstanding choice and the one that United wanted, although they rightly reasoned that there was no way PSG would let him go at that point of the season.

An approach would have given PSG a chance to flex their muscles against a big European rival, as they did last summer in triggering a one-year extension to Pochettino’s contract when Tottenham Hotspur showed interest in taking him back.

“The fit between where we are and what we need to do, with the type of player we have, really fits. If it is him he will be given time,” a United source said at the time. “PSG would love it if we knocked on the door now because they would create a moment where they looked bigger than us.”

So United did not make their move although Pochettino, who wanted the job, remained top of their list. But fast forward five months, and the Argentine finds himself passed over in favour of Erik ten Hag, and speculating what might come next in a career which remains – in some respects – frustratingly unfulfilled.

Pochettino would be entitled to wonder what, exactly, has changed in the interim. Two factors are clear: United’s appointment of a new chief executive in Richard Arnold, who succeeded Ed Woodward in January, and PSG’s horrible exit from the Champions League at the hands of Real Madrid, throwing away a 2-0 aggregate lead in a mad half-hour at the Bernabeu.

Beyond that, however, Pochettino remains the same coach he was before – one whose strengths and weaknesses were laid out in a file detailing all the potential candidates (including Ten Hag and Julen Lopetegui) and which was inherited by Arnold who, understandably, decided to re-run the process of assessing who should take over even if no new names were expected to emerge. The list did not change much from November.

There is little doubt, however, that Pochettino’s star began to wane. He is on his way out of PSG and is likely to be sacked at the end of this campaign so maybe it was as simple as United not wanting a manager who is being dismissed? PSG would love to replace him with Zinedine Zidane although sources in France suggest he may become the next national team coach instead when Didier Deschamps leaves after the World Cup. The Champions League exit – and the manner of it – undoubtedly hurt Pochettino, as did the backlash among United supporters.