'I'd be amazed': What Eric Ramsay said about return to English football amid talks with West Brom

He had also been on the radar of a host of clubs, and was offered the Barnsley job during his days on the coaching staff at Manchester United.

There were links to Swansea City, where Ramsay coached in the academy, and more recently his name was associated with the vacant Strasbourg job following Liam Rosenior's move to Chelsea.

And for the coach, who is in talks with Albion over succeeding Mason at The Hawthorns, he has always detailed the reason as to why he made the move to the MLS - and a lot of it centres around not waiting to lose his first job.

In an interview with MSP Mag earlier this year, Ramsay explained: "I was offered a job in League One in England after about six months of being at Man United, but it wasn’t the right time. I felt like I’d just got to Man United, the manager had just changed there, and I wanted to work alongside the new manager. 

"But when [Minnesota United sporting director] Khaled El-Ahmad reached out, it spiked my attention to how interesting an opportunity it is. I knew MLS was growing, but until I started researching it properly, I didn’t grasp how quickly. 

"Being from the UK and having worked in the Champions League and the Premier League as an assistant, it’s difficult to not at least have some loosely held ambition to get back to that point as a head coach, but I appreciate how difficult that is. 

"There are very few British coaches working at the top level of the British game. Part of the reason I wanted to come here was the objective data around the lifespan of MLS coaches. 

"I didn’t want to lose my first job. If you lose your first job, it’s very difficult to get a second. 

"I’ve seen lots of coaches who have had textbook rises, then they take their first head coach job in the Championship league, and they lose it within two months, and then they’ve got a big black mark against their name."

As it the case with many coaches, not just British but across Europe and the world, there is a want to get a job in England.

Ramsay openly admitted that is what his goal is and the coach, who can speak four languages, also went on to say: "I’d be naive to say that I won’t end up back there. We are very close to our family, and we’re not going to spend the next 10 years away from the UK—I’d be amazed if that ended up being the case. 

"British coaches typically don’t travel well. So, I feel like in coming here, I’ve opened the world up in a way that lots of other British coaches haven’t been able to. What I don’t want to do is immediately close the world off again. I enjoy this league because it’s the most multinational league in the world. 

"We’ve got 17 or 18 nationalities in our group. We’re regularly putting out 11 players with 11 different nationalities. It’s a really interesting context to work in. In terms of preparation for perhaps working elsewhere, this is as good as it gets."