"No proposal or offer yet" is the stand that Jose Mourinho and his agent are taking over reports of a possible move to Manchester United at the expense of the Portuguese's mentor Louis Van Gaal.

Mourinho has been heavily tipped to take over at Old Trafford, with Van Gaal losing the confidence of the Manchester United hierarchy following some abysmal results.

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Manchester United are already out of the Champions League, while they dropped out of the top four as well this weekend, following a loss to Norwich City.

With Mourinho now a free man after being sacked by Chelsea, speculation was rife that he could replace Van Gaal at the Manchester United helm, but according to the former Real Madrid manager's agent Jorge Mendes there has been no contact yet from Manchester United, despite a report recently suggesting a deal was already agreed in principle.

"There is nothing," Mendes told The Guardian when asked about those reports that suggested a deal was already in place. "We don't know what will happen in the future, but now there is no agreement.

"There isn't an official proposal either, that's not true."

The major problem for Mourinho will be to convince the people upstairs that he is the right man for the job. The Portuguese was not picked by Sir Alex Ferguson as his successor owing to his penchant for playing a bland brand of football and hogging the headlines, quite often, for all the wrong reasons.

While the Portuguese is thought to be interested in replacing Van Gaal, it is understood he will have to agree to toe the company line, especially considering Manchester United is such a big brand.

However, if results continue to be poor under Van Gaal – the Boxing Day match against Stoke City and the one a couple of days after that against Chelsea will be crucial – the board might have little choice but to end their association with Van Gaal with Mourinho then being the obvious choice to take over.