YOU wonder if soon Germany's time as the "gold standard" to follow will come to an end and we'll go looking for another holy grail "model" to ape.

Just as we did before with Spain. And France before them.

That may be premature - they are the world champions after all - but after a turbulent, topsy-turvy Bundesliga week, anything can happen.

It started on Wednesday morning, when Jurgen Klopp announced he would be leaving Borussia Dortmund after seven years as manager. The fact he said he won't be taking a sabbatical but hopes to work somewhere else next season predictably set off the Klopp Sweepstakes: who would land the bespectacled, mop-haired genius?

As speculation goes, it likely won't match the Guardiola lottery three years back, but it won't be far off. Yet it also served as a reminder of how far Dortmund have fallen this season. At the time of his announcement they were 10th, far closer to relegation (six points away) than to the Champions League (18 points in the other direction). They are out of Europe, though they still have a shot at silverware via the German Cup.

More to the point, they have been poor, at one point going nearly two months without a win. They were hit by injuries, but things didn't improve when the injured guys returned.

On Wednesday night came another blow. A string of defensive blunders caused mighty Bayern Munich to fall to Porto, 3-1. It's not an insurmountable deficit, but Bayern's attacking sterility was shocking. Part of it was down to the injury crisis that hit Guardiola: Bastian Schweinsteiger, Javi Martinez, Arjen Robben, Franck Ribery, Javi Martinez, Mehdi Benatia, David Alaba... the list goes on.

Guardiola has long been frustrated by his walking wounded and it came to a head on Friday when the club's four-man medical staff, led by controversial doctor Hans-Wilhelm Muller- Wohlfahrt, announced their resignation, citing a "lack of trust". Seeing Muller-Wohlfahrt - who has used homeopathic and unorthodox techniques to work with everyone from Bono to Usain Bolt - leave Bayern after a 28-year career was a shock.

Thursday night saw Wolfsburg - second in the Bundesliga and Germany's only quarter-final side in the Europa League - lose 4-1 at home to Napoli, coached by the embattled Rafa Benitez.

It's not a crisis and, Germans often knowing better, it won't lead to a knee-jerk reaction and the kind of "root and branch" reviews we often see in England. But it should serve as a reminder of a simple truth. What works in football often works for a while and in a certain context. It won't necessarily work forever and in every cultural setting. And, equally, there are good, clever people doing good, clever things in just about every corner of Europe. It's just that we in the commentariat like to praise the same people over and over until we round on them and revel in their decline.

Speaking of Klopp and speculation, why don't we have a go ourselves?

The bookies have already slashed odds on the German rocking up at Manchester City to replace Manuel Pellegrini. In some ways it makes sense, in others it makes none. City's style is very different from Klopp's high-energy pressing. And with the club subject to Financial Fair Play restrictions and packed with a bunch of highly-paid veterans with long-term contracts, it is not as if the squad can be radically overhauled in the summer.

Arsenal would be a better fit, though it doesn't look as if that job is available: Arsene Wenger will leave the Emirates on his own terms and nobody knows when.

Manchester United pursued him aggressively a year ago, but now Louis Van Gaal is entrenched, as is Jose Mourinho at Chelsea. With Totten- ham unlikely to make a managerial change in the summer, that leaves Liverpool. Should they fail to qualify for the Champions League, it will be twice in three years for Brendan Rodgers. And that could leave him on thin ice, if Klopp is in the frame.

England does appear to be the most likely destination simply because of the landscape elsewhere. Bayern (Guardiola), Bayer Leverkusen (Roger Schmidt) and Borussia Monchenglad- bach (Lucien Favre) are happy with their managers. A move to arch-rival Schalke is unthinkable.

Luis Enrique is going nowhere at Barcelona and Atletico, should Diego Simeone move on, would present familiar shackles of budgets and spending. Real Madrid? Maybe, if Carlo Ancelotti under-achieves and gets the boot.

Serie A's biggest teams are either happy with their bosses or distinctly unattractive. There's always Paris St Germain. A few months ago, it appeared certain there would be a vacancy there. Now, with Laurent Blanc having secured the first leg of a possible domestic Treble, it's far from a foregone conclusion.

Maybe it's a legacy of Margaret Thatcher and all that "there is no society, only individual men and women" stuff, but organised action from football supporters is extremely rare in England. That's why today's planned boycott of Newcastle's televised home clash against Tottenham is so significant. Fans are angry at Mike Ashley's stewardship of the club and what they see as a kind of aimless drift to mediocrity. The publication of the club's 2013-14 accounts in midweek - which revealed a profit of £13.4 million - will only have reinforced that view.

Organisers expect that as many as 16,000 supporters will stay away and that will have a big impact on TV. Given the average attendance of 50,000-plus at St James' this season there will still be sizeable crowd.

How to define success? It's not as if Ashley will suddenly turn into Jack Walker and invite fans to his house or throw some serious money at the club. But perhaps they can do enough to send a clear message: all is not well here. And if it is loud enough, others will take notice and join in the next protest. If that happens, then it might start impacting on the biggest brand of all, the Premier League. And if that negativity is bad for business, then other clubs will take notice.

That's how you effect change these days. Through public moral suasion. Yet for that to work, you need enough fans willing to give up the seats they paid for. And if necessary, to do so again and again.