Monday 7 December 2015 08:36, UK
Pep Guardiola will not take over as Manchester United manager when he leaves Bayern Munich, John Richardson told the Sunday Supplement.
The former Barcelona boss's contract at the Allianz Arena expires in the summer with rumours suggesting that he is ready to leave Munich for a new challenge.
However, speaking on the Sunday Supplement, Daily Express journalist Richardson suggested that he had been told the Spaniard would not be at Old Trafford.
"Questions have been asked about Louis van Gaal, even though he has got a fantastic CV, and the obvious replacement - if there was going to be a replacement - would be Pep Guardiola," Richardson said.
"That question was posed to somebody and the answer came back: 'No. We know he's leaving Bayern Munich but he's not heading to Old Trafford.'"
The reason United may not be in the market for Guardiola's services, Richardson suggested, was as much due to timing as anything else.
"Louis van Gaal will be in charge next season, even if it is his last season," he said.
"He signed a three-year contract and is unlikely to sign another one so the timing could be a bit peculiar if Guardiola is available this summer.
"It means Manchester United are going to miss out and 12 months down the line they will be looking for another manager.
"However, it's emphatic that Van Gaal is the manager of Manchester United and Guardiola is not coming to Old Trafford, certainly not this summer."
But The Telegraph's Jason Burt feels United - alongside the other top clubs in the Premier League - need to be more ruthless so as not to miss out on a manager of Guardiola's calibre.
"It's quite possible [United] think he's going to go somewhere else and they are not going to pursue it because of that," he said.
"There is a general sense of happiness with Van Gaal at the club in terms of some of the stuff he's done.
"Personally, if someone of Guardiola's stature comes on the market you've got to be ruthless and I'm surprised that other clubs aren't being ruthless as well. Which top English club can afford to let Guardiola go to a rival?
"You look at all the traditional top four clubs and is Guardiola better than what they've got? Yes he probably is. Should those clubs be looking at him as a possibility? Yes they should.
"They might come to regret not being more ruthless about it if they let him walk into the hands of one of their rivals."
While Old Trafford appears to be an unlikely destination, Manchester is still a possibility with suggestions that Manchester City head the queue for the Catalonian coach.
"There's an awful lot of noise around Manchester City in terms of whether or not something has already been agreed," added Burt.
"City deny that but a lot of people are talking quite openly about it now, assuming that he is going to go to Manchester City."
