IN his four-and-a-half years as manager of Bristol City, it is safe to say that Lee Johnson left no stone unturned in an attempt to drive the club forward.

He spent time in the NHS, shadowing doctors and nurses to see how they worked. He spoke to senior figures in the SAS and Red Arrows to investigate how their teamwork held together under the most intense of pressures. He invited members of drum and bass band Rudimental into Bristol City’s training ground in order to conduct a question-and-answer session with members of the first-team squad.

While some football managers regard their profession as a closed-shop, operating under different rules and conditions to other sports or sections of society, Johnson is a disciple of the Sir Clive Woodward mantra of ‘marginal gains’. If something outside football’s traditional confines can add an extra half per cent to performance levels, why wouldn’t you want to take advantage?

Phil Parkinson, who was dismissed as Sunderland manager a week ago, was the archetypal old-fashioned boss. If, as looks increasingly likely, Johnson is appointed as his replacement, the Black Cats’ players had better get ready for a fairly radical change.

“When I go on my case studies, it’s not always necessarily built around football,” explained Johnson, in an interview with The Independent in October. “It can be built around a theme or a philosophy that builds into football.

“When I went to the NHS, that was more about decision-making under pressure, and the SAS was more about communication, particularly when you’re in high-pressure environments. And also the Red Arrows, which was very interesting, was more based on critique and feedback in a post-mortem of a football match.

“Those communication techniques become really important. It’s all building this toolbox to be able to deal with what can be a very complex set of circumstances in a football dressing room.”

From the day he took his first steps into management as a 31-year-old at Oldham Athletic in 2013 – his appointment made him the youngest manager in the Football League at the time – Johnson has not been afraid to think outside the box.

His father, Gary, was a successful manager throughout the lower leagues, and Lee, a midfielder who started out as a trainee at Arsenal before spending the majority of his playing career at Yeovil and Bristol City, always appeared destined to follow in his footsteps.

He spent two years with Oldham, leading them into the top ten in League One, before he was offered the chance to move to Barnsley. He was at Oakwell for a year, leading the Tykes to the EFL Trophy final, before he was poached by Bristol City in February 2016.

Over the course of the next four years, he helped turn the Robins into one of the Championship’s leading sides, and while he was ultimately unable to fulfil the club’s dream of winning a place in the Premier League, he is fondly remembered at Ashton Gate for his successful results and attractive playing style.

He took Bristol City to the semi-finals of the League Cup, where they lost to Manchester City, and revelled in the opportunity to pick the brains of some of the leading managers in world football.

“What impressed me with (Pep) Guardiola and (Jose) Mourinho is that it wasn’t just me firing questions,” he said. “I don’t think you can be as successful as they are without being top humans, top people.”

That inquisitive nature is a key part of his personality, and led him to spend time at RB Leipzig, where he was greatly impressed with the management structures that helped the German club rise from lowly beginnings to the upper reaches of the Bundesliga table.

He is happy to work within a continental model – at Bristol City, he dovetailed with the club’s chief executive Mark Ashton – and is set to form a close relationship with Kristjaan Speakman, who was appointed as Sunderland’s new sporting director earlier today.

He will be tasked with helping Speakman overhaul Sunderland’s off-field set-up, but his primary responsibility will be improving the club’s current league position, which sees them sitting in seventh position in League One ahead of today’s game with Wigan Athletic.

“You’ve got to take all the successes and the failures, and try to redefine and improve,” he said, after his departure from Ashton Gate.

Assuming he agrees to move to Wearside, Sunderland will be hoping there are many more successes than failures over the next few years.