Now Manchester City have secured Pep Guardiola, the focus intensifies on Manchester United and the state of flux threatening to engulf Old Trafford. The Spaniard’s appointment concentrates what has become the searing issue for Ed Woodward and which is proving a minefield for the executive vice-chairman: what next for United?

Who can lead them forward and go toe-to-toe with Guardiola to prevent Manchester’s blue half dominating domestically for possibly the next decade, and being the leading English force in the quest to challenge the continental aristocrats, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich?

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This question of direction has been posed since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement as manager in May 2013. Then, Woodward (and an executive still heavily influenced by the knight) came up with the wrong answer in Everton’s David Moyes. As the power of the Ferguson-David Gill-Sir Bobby Charlton axis receded, Woodward again seems to have drawn a blank in Louis van Gaal. Barring a dramatic reversal of fortune, Moyes’s successor will surely vacate the Old Trafford hot-seat this spring or in the summer, and the search for United’s next big managerial thing will continue.

What is surely troubling Woodward is that he cannot get it wrong a third time. At the moment, the Glazers trust him implicitly. The owners see the Old Trafford coffers bulging and the warm glow reaches across the Atlantic to their Florida base, from where they allow Woodward free rein.

If Van Gaal does leave and Woodward then brings in a third manager who fails, the 44-year-old faces a potential power drain. United will slip further down the list as a destination club for elite managers – and players – and Woodward will be cast as a character from Samuel Beckett: unable to act decisively, forever waiting for events to happen to him, rather than shaping them.

In the summer of 2014 Woodward believed he had hired a managerial grandee in Van Gaal who, as a serial domestic and European trophy winner, would add to that CV at United. Eighteen months later, this appears a serious miscalculation: the Dutchman has become like an old prizefighter who takes one bout too many and ages in the ring.

Van Gaal remains, though, and the club are stuck in flux – a predicament deepened by the stasis over his future and who might replace him. This needs to be addressed soon, yet it may already be too late as the club across town hurtle towards a spectacular future at a pace frightening to others.

City have their sparkling new £200m academy and a training facility that is arguably the world’s best. They have begun to seriously refresh their squad with the additions of Raheem Sterling, 21, and Kevin De Bruyne, 24. And now they have Guardiola.

If the next and established generation were unsure if United should still be the choice in Manchester over Sheikh Mansour’s club, Guardiola’s arrival is the closest thing to Lionel Messi or Neymar pitching up as the marquee signing to make the decision easier. United need a similar appointment and whatever the club’s reservations there may be only one man: José Mourinho.

At Christmas Woodward ignored the Portuguese’s candidacy to replace Van Gaal because of Mourinho’s divisive nature. Woodward is continuing to do so. Eventually, for the sake of United, the executive vice-chairman may decide this has to change.

In the managerial stakes, change is all around. Now is the time for United to catch this renewal bug. Guardiola is 45, Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp 48, and Tottenham Hotspur’s Mauricio Pochettino 43. They head a band of young guns who are moving in on an established Premier League order which is ruled by Arsène Wenger (66) at Arsenal, Manuel Pellegrini (62) at City, and Van Gaal (64). Of this trio only Wenger is sure to remain in place next season to try to keep the new wave at bay, as Pellegrini will be the fall guy for Guardiola, whatever the Chilean achieves in the four competitions City can still win.

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Mourinho, 53, is smarting from his sacking by Chelsea and would ride into Old Trafford with a point or three to prove. In the short term (which is what he deals in), Mourinho appears Woodward’s safest bet. He has the ability and persona to take on Guardiola. The fractious relations between the two would also drive Mourinho on to again be the Special One.

For Woodward, the only alternative appears to be a gamble on romanticism; to go for Ryan Giggs, a club great and Van Gaal’s No2, or Valencia’s Gary Neville, who also bleeds United. Here, the perfect narrative would be that Giggs or Neville are promoted and it becomes United’s Guardiola moment: an untested, adored former player becomes manager and leads the club to glory, as Guardiola did when appointed at Barcelona in the summer of 2008. Given the state United are in, though, Woodward may decide against idealism and conclude that pragmatism has to rule.

United are fifth, five points behind Tottenham in fourth, so they could yet qualify for the Champions League. But settling for this and/or an FA Cup triumph would merely allow the stagnation to continue.

The hard truth of City’s winning of the race to sign Guardiola is that the world’s most sought-after coach snubbed United for the chance to roam the Etihad next season. United’s global profile and commercial riches are a product of the club’s long tradition of winning. City are now serious players in this game. If United fail to act decisively, they will be left behind.