SPORT: Football
Manchester United hope to appoint their new manager by the end of April.

The timetable Unit­ed are cur­rent­ly work­ing on in their ‘thor­ough process of appoint­ing a new man­ag­er’ great­ly rais­es the prospect that their pick still has work to fin­ish else­where when Ole Gun­nar Sol­sk­jaer’s per­ma­nent suc­ces­sor is announced.

Paris Saint-Ger­main’s Mauri­cio Pochet­ti­no and Ajax’s Erik ten Hag are the main, but not the only, con­tenders. The club are also said to be mon­i­tor­ing Thomas Tuchel’s sit­u­a­tion at Chelsea, which is in crisis.

Pochet­ti­no’s future at the French league lead­ers is in doubt after their Cham­pi­ons League col­lapse and exit against Real Madrid this week.

Sports­mail report­ed yes­ter­day that amid links with oth­er man­agers, includ­ing Madrid’s Car­lo Ancelot­ti, Pochet­ti­no wants Unit­ed to con­vince him he is their No.1 choice before he agrees to take the job.

Cur­rent care­tak­er boss Ralf Rang­nick has­n’t giv­en up on secur­ing the long-term role either.

The Euro­pean club cam­paign does not end until the Cham­pi­ons League final on May 28 while the sum­mer trans­fer win­dow opens on June 9.

The plan Unit­ed have drawn up will see their next man­ag­er become more involved in their prepa­ra­tions for the next win­dow, with uncer­tain­ty over who will be in charge cur­rent­ly affect­ing trans­fer, con­tract nego­ti­a­tions and squad plan­ning, as well as the 2022/23 season.

It’s also an indi­ca­tion of the deter­mi­na­tion of Unit­ed’s new hier­ar­chy, includ­ing CEO Richard Arnold and direc­tor of foot­ball John Mur­tough, to give their next man­ag­er every chance to start.

If all goes accord­ing to plan, it will be the first sum­mer man­age­r­i­al appoint­ment since Sir Alex Fer­gu­son left in 2013.

David Moyes was con­firmed as Fer­gu­son’s suc­ces­sor on May 9 but did not offi­cial­ly start work until July 1.

Louis Van Gaal was announced on May 19, 2014 but had to wait until after this sum­mer’s World Cup, where he was in charge of the Nether­lands, before starting.

Van Gaal’s depar­ture two years lat­er was an open secret but was only con­firmed two days after win­ning the 2016 FA Cup.

Jose Mour­in­ho was then announced as Man­ches­ter Unit­ed man­ag­er on May 27.