Fulham's new manager caused confusion at the Danish club when he told his players to imagine themselves as animals before a Uefa Cup game against Eintracht Frankfurt

The Brondby dressing room, Frankfurt Stadion, 14 September 2006. Rene Meulensteen is about to deliver an intriguing team-talk before a Uefa Cup first-leg match against Eintracht Frankfurt.

To the captain, Per Nielsen, he says: "OK, Per, what animal are you today?"

Nielsen: "Erm, a snake."

Meulensteen: "No. Snakes are slow."

Nielsen: "Then a tiger."

Meulensteen: "Good. Tigers are brave, fast and strong. That is what we need from a captain."

Soren Sorgenfri Frederiksen, the co-author of 4 Per Nielsen – Brondby for evigt? (Brondby for ever?), takes up the story at the point at which foxes, giraffes, a whole zoo have been nominated.

"When Rene has asked all 11 players, he says: 'OK we have pretty good cover – we have tigers, lions: we are clever, we have muscle, we are strong, and so on. We cannot lose today,'" Frederiksen adds. "Then Rene left the dressing room and all the players sat there looking at each other and started laughing, saying: 'Shit. What the hell is this guy all about?" And then they went out and lost 4-0 and got two red cards."

A fly on the wall would be intrigued to see how Dimitar Berbatov, Brede Hangeland, Damian Duff, Steve Sidwell, Aaron Hughes, Adel Taarabt, Darren Bent and company may respond if asked to inhabit their alter egos to take on Tottenham.

Meulensteen had signed a three-year contract at Brondby but left after half a season when he abruptly rejoined Manchester United to become assistant manager in January 2007.

The Dutchman had to leave to care for his ill wife, though he subsequently revealed to a newspaper in his homeland the "disease of Brondby" that was, he claimed, because of the domination of a clique of senior players headed by Nielsen and which also included Marcus Lantz, Thomas Rytter and Thomas Rasmussen.

André Villas-Boas, the manager in the opposing dugout on Wednesday discovered that his attempt to ease the influence of senior players at Chelsea damaged his own status.

The failed power-grab may show up a naivety and inexperience, and Meulensteen was considered a failure in Denmark when he departed a club who had been champions only two seasons before under Michael Laudrup. Yet his assessment that Brondby were a "sick patient" came to be viewed by some as a prescient diagnosis.

A view formed that Per Bjerrergaard, the director who announced his son, Anders, as director of football at the same press conference as Meulensteen's unveiling, was an all-powerful figure who refused the manager's demand to remove Nielsen, Lantz, Rytter and Rasmussen despite asking for his proposals on how to revamp Brondby. Anders Bjerrergaard did not respond to calls from the Guardian on Monday.

If the Fulham fan wants further clues regarding how Meulensteen may fare in the attempt to save the club from relegation, a glance at his CV shows vast experience at junior level or as an assistant but little at the sharp end of football.

There were three seasons as head of NEC Nijmegen's youth set-up in the Netherlands from 1990 to 1993, before he took charge of the Qatar Under-18s for six years. Then, after a season each at Al-Ittihad and Al-Sadd, came 11 years at United – broken only by the six months at Brondby – during which Meulensteen oversaw the club's youth and reserve sides until 2006 before returning the following January as Sir Alex Ferguson's assistant.

Meulensteen's only other spell as a manager came last summer when he was given 16 days by Anzhi Makhachkala before being sacked. Precisely why his removal came so quickly has never been explained, the departure coming as the chairman, Konstantin Remchukov, stated the club's budget should be markedly reduced.

All of this makes his time at Brondby the longest Meulensteen has survived in charge at a European club, so he may well draw on that when facing up to a Fulham squad that has serially underperformed and which ultimately cost Martin Jol his job.

During that 4-0 defeat at Frankfurt one of the Brondby players sent off was Mark Howard, who alongside his fellow defender Adam Eckersely had been recruited by Meulensteen from United.

The fall-out from Howard's sending-off offers further insight into the 49-year-old's management style at the time. Frederiksen says: "Thomas Rasmussen told the media straight after the game that Howard let the team down with a stupid red card. So later Thomas got the Meulensteen hairdryer treatment: he sat him on a chair in front of the squad, and told him he was disloyal and a bad colleague even though it was Howard who had let the entire team down."

At United Meulensteen's methods were respected enough for David Moyes to want to retain his services when appointing a new backroom staff. He was heralded for being innovative by the senior players. Frederiksen offers an illustration of this approach when at Brondby. "He would jump in front of players and shout "Boo" because he wanted them used to playing in front of 10,000 fans," he said, with Meulensteen possibly unaware that there were hardened international footballers in his new squad.

Now, Fulham host Tottenham as the Premier League's 18th-placed club. Meulensteen, whose long-term future is yet to be clarified as he continues as head coach rather than manager, looks at the table and sees a side with 10 points and a goal difference of minus 13, having scored just 11 times in 13 games.

But as Fulham are only three points from safety Meulensteen has a chance to show he could guide them to survival and convince the chairman, Shahid Khan, to give him the job permanently. How much Meulensteen has soaked up from working alongside Sir Alex Ferguson, British football's most successful manager, is about to be revealed.