Those trips to Lille were, Jose Mourinho liked to joke, a chance for him to watch a match at a club where no-one would ever assume that he was sizing up the manager’s job. He could go to the game, have a chat with his old friend, the sporting director Luis Campos, and there was no danger of anyone ever making the assumption that he was angling for a job in Ligue 1.

Although, he was up to something. Mourinho was in Lille in February to watch a fixture against Montpellier and then again last month to meet the Lille coaches he had told over the course of the year would be part of his inner circle at whatever club he was appointed at next. The first-team coach Joao Sacramento, a young Portuguese former analyst who is trilingual, was the obvious Mourinho protege and, in search of fresh face and fresh ideas, the old trophy-hunter liked what he saw.

Mourinho’s attitude towards unemployment has not changed since his first sacking back in 2000 when he fell on the wrong side of a Benfica presidential election. Mourinho likes to be ready for whatever is coming and in this case it meant assembling a new group of coaches, scouts and an analyst, who could hit the ground running at a new club, when a new manager can have just days to adapt to a new squad before the first game comes around.