Manchester United fans must be thinking all their Christmases have come at once.

After a string of managerial missteps and underperforming coaches they finally have a man in charge of the team who gives you the impression he has a vision.

Unlike some of his predecessors, Erik ten Hag knows how to handle his players, has a plan on how he wants them to play and has stamped his authority on a collection of expensive individuals who were going nowhere before he arrived.

In fact, performances under the Dutch boss have improved to the extent that United could – if you squint your eyes and look at the league table from the opposite side of the room – be considered potential title challengers this season. And that was entirely unimaginable just a few months ago when a disjointed team was struggling at the wrong end of the table.

So, after years of disappointment, frustration and limited success on the pitch, United supporters can now look to the future with hope and enthusiasm.

Off the pitch too the tide has started to turn.

After decades of stamping their feet and shouting “Glazers Out!” at anybody who happened to be listening, the fans’ prayers were answered in November when the least popular American family in Manchester relented and said they would consider selling.

All those positives wrapped up together explain why United fans I know are walking around with a smile on their faces, more confident and optimistic about the future than they have been for many a year.

But that tentative smile could be about to turn into a full-blown Cheshire Cat grin with last week’s news that Sir Jim Ratcliffe has formally launched a bid to buy the club.

One of the things I pointed out when the Glazers put the ‘For sale’ sign up was that United fans should be careful what they wish for. While the Glazers were – and still are – awful at running a football club, there are plenty of potential owners around who could be even worse.

Yes, the Glazers sucked money out of the club at every available opportunity and saddled it with debt, but they never shied away from big money transfers or appointing managers with massive reputations and equally massive wage demands.

Not all owners would have been as happy to spend as the Glazers have been, so I suggested United fans might be better with the devil they know.

But with Sir Jim, all that changes.

Why? Well, he doesn’t just happen to be one of the richest people in the United Kingdom, he also happens to be a lifelong, proper, bona fide United supporter who was born in Manchester.

I think if you gave any fans of any club the opportunity to design their perfect owner, there are two things that would be at the top of their list – that he or she is a genuine fan and that they have a few billion pounds burning a hole in their pocket.

As boxes go, those are both emphatically ticked.

Obviously, it would be wrong for United fans to count any petrochemically smothered chickens before they have hatched – Ratcliffe is likely to be one of several bidders for the club. And, despite the incredible depth of his pockets, I would imagine he will still need to put together a consortium to cover a deal that is likely to be worth five or six billion, if not more.

But somehow it just feels like it is written in the stars that Sir Jim is going to get his hands on the club he supported from the terraces as a little boy. It almost feels like his whole, incredibly successful life has been leading up to this one big, emotionally-charged deal.

It just feels like it is written in the stars that Sir Jim is going to get his hands on the club he supported from the terraces as a little boy

We should know in the next couple of months whether Ratcliffe is going to get his club as the plan is apparently to get any deal over the line by the end of March.

And if Jim does end up walking out onto the pitch as the man who slayed the Glazer dragon, it will cap a remarkable turnaround in fortune for Manchester United and their supporters that seemed a million miles away just 12 months ago.

If you love something, set it free

Job security and football management are not two things that go together.

In fact, your average manager – and even most of the above-average ones – is never more than a poor run of form away from being gently guided out into the sunset, cardboard box in hand.

Sometimes it might not even need several bad results and just a single game can be enough to push them over the employment edge – losing to a fierce rival, maybe, or being on the end of a proper spanking.

And the latter – in the form or a rather embarrassing 8-2 defeat to Atalanta – is what caused Italian Serie A side Salernitana to part ways with manager Davide Nicola last Monday. As dismissals go, that can’t have been much of a shock.

What was slightly surprising, however, is that just 48 hours later Nicola was back in the job after Salernitana president Danilo Iervolino had a change of heart, proclaiming that you only realise how much you love someone after they leave.

“For the good of the club, the players and everything, it’s only right that the coach has another chance with the promise the team will never again suffer such humiliating defeat,” Iervolino said.

If Nicola did make that promise then it was a bit rash. No manager of any club, whether they are Barcelona or Bognor Regis, could ever promise they won’t be on the wrong end of a thrashing.

Then again, Nicola, like his boss, also appears to have gone a bit mushy. “This means that the new football is made of passion and heart, and I want to repay his trust with all my love.”

Get a room boys, get a room.

E-mail: James@Quizando.com

Twitter: @Maltablade