Manchester City are in the midst of their worst ever run during the wildly successful Pep Guardiola era, and even that new contract he’s signed isn’t entirely quelling talk that it might all soon be over.

Following Guardiola at City appears to be a genuinely thankless task but someone will have to do it at some point. According to the latest odds, it’s one of these lads.

6=) Julian Nagelsmann
Can’t have a Big Six Next Manager market without him.

6=) Eddie Howe
“It’s always difficult with managers because if he wins too many games he becomes attractive to, I don’t know, Real Madrid or Manchester City,” said Dan Ashworth. Really, Dan? We’re talking about Eddie Howe here…

6=) Mikel Arteta
Actually ticks a lot of boxes if you think about it sensibly, but let’s be honest nobody wants to think about this sensibly. The main reason this should happen is that it would be very funny and boil enough p*ss to solve the energy crisis overnight.

6=) Luis Enrique
Can’t really see how being manager of Paris St-Germain could be any preparation for being manager of Manchester City. Just entirely different jobs.

6=) Hansi Flick
His Barcelona team are currently dismantling La Liga in alarming manner, easing into a nine-point lead having won 11 of their first 13 games while scoring a frankly silly 40 goals in the process. So yeah, could see why City might entertain this one as an idea. But you’d imagine there will be easier manages to entice than Flick if the job is up for grabs this summer.

6=) Ruben Amorim
Obviously just a little ghost in the machine, a price that hasn’t fully drifted to its proper place to reflect the reality we now live in. But it would nevertheless be incredibly funny if he is in fact the correct answer here. Some sh*t will have gone down.

5) Zinedine Zidane
Still seems outlandish but the idea of Real Madrid specialist Zinedine Zidane rocking up in the Barclays at Manchester City feels vaguely less implausible than him turning up anywhere else in England.

Would certainly fit City’s idea of themselves, while City now have the Guardiola-reinforced status that might appeal to the great man. And let’s not pretend that the idea of Real Madrid’s most successful player-turned-manager replacing Barcelona’s in the City hotseat wouldn’t be dripping in delicious narrative.

Still, though. Always feels like Zidane’s prominence in all these lists is far more a product of collective wishful thinking than anything else.

4) Roberto De Zerbi
All went a bit wrong at Brighton in the end, didn’t it, but currently making a decent stab at reputation-restoring with Marseille, who have 26 points from their first 13 games to sit second in Ligue 1.

3) Vincent Kompany
He’s the Knows The Club appointment, the Spoke Well, I Thought appointment, and having seen his Burnley struggles rewarded with a failing upwards to make Roberto Martinez blush he now has the Big Club credentials, too.

Fascinating in many ways that being named Bayern Munich manager hasn’t really altered his chances here all that much. It’s very much swings and roundabouts, isn’t it? On the plus side, he would now come to City with big-club experience, but at the same time if he’s available next summer then how well have things gone in Germany? Then again, a year is now about the standard length of service for any Bayern manager so maybe it all means absolutely nothing.

And that’s why he’s still right up there.

1=) Xabi Alonso
This would be quite something, and there are plenty of reports suggesting it could be a goer. But here surely is a manager who almost certainly will end up at one of the giant clubs he represented as a player. The beauty of being a highly-rated young manager who played for Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid is that you’re going to have plenty of options.

Decided to stay at Bayer Leverkusen for at least one more year after last season’s unbeaten (domestically at least) antics, and that does raise the possibility of his timing being better with regard to City than any of the great clubs on his CV. It’s also a risk; there has to be a very decent chance last summer marked the very high point of his reputation and standing, and at a time when two of his three ideal jobs were available.

1=) Michel
Such is the nature of the modern game that Knows The Football Club can now also be Knows The Football Group. Michel had Girona on one of the least likely title bids ever seen in La Liga and ‘fading to third behind Real Madrid and Barcelona’ still represented astonishing over-achievement last season. But does all rather feel like he may have slightly missed the boat having failed to land a big job – inside or outside the Football Group – on the back of that unrepeatably stellar 23/24.

Girona have reverted to the mean this year, and while sitting mid-table in La Liga is still no disgrace, it does rather reduce one’s chances of becoming Manchester City manager, we think.