Manchester United, the football team that employed one manager - Sir Alex Ferguson - for 27 years, is looking to part company with the fourth manager - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer - in the space of the six years since Ferguson retired, and are talking to Real Madrid's Zinedine Zidane as the Norwegian's successor.
They are also thought to be speaking to the under-fire Newcastle United boss, Steve Bruce, and TV actor and author, Ricky Tomlinson, who starred as Mike Bassett in 'Mike Bassett: England Manager'.
Not much has gone right for United since Ferguson called it a day, and David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and, latterly, Solskjaer have been unable to recover the team's former glories.
Zidane is unsettled at Madrid, and may be ready for the Premier League. He has a very direct, no-nonsense approach to problems, and doesn't mince his words. He can accurately be described as 'a man of action'.
If the French-Algerian doesn't fancy it, former Old Trafford hero Steve Bruce has United running through his veins, and would surely leap at the chance of taking the reins at the Theatre of Dreams.
The surprise package in this speculative assortment is Tomlinson. Veteran of 'Brookside' and 'The Royle Family', the Blackpool-born actor showed, in the aforementioned drama, at least as much management flair as Solskjaer has, and would be a dark horse should United decide to take another OGS-type gamble.
