John Peters/Man Utd/Getty ImagesWho will be the next man to answer media questions at Old Trafford? Jose Mourinho may not like the answer.

Well, well, well. It looks as though the succession question for the hottest job in football may have been answered, and it's not pleasing news for Jose Mourinho. As revealed a few weeks ago by ESPN and others, a senior delegation from Old Trafford went to meet Pep Guardiola in New York, where he is currently enjoying a sabbatical, with the message that the job is effectively his to refuse.

- Sir Alex defends Mourinho

This is quite a turnaround from the narrative of recent years, which has seen Mourinho as the frontrunner to take over for Sir Alex Ferguson. Their chumminess has been notable, seen most recently in the ITV documentary, "Mourinho", where the Scot steadfastly refused to criticise some of the Real Madrid manager's worst excesses. There would be an unparalleled level of enmity between Mourinho and Guardiola were the former Barcelona boss to beat him to the throne left vacant by Ferguson. Guardiola, after all, has already beaten him to one plumb position, taking charge at the Nou Camp even after Mourinho had delivered what has been widely reported as a superb presentation.

There seem to be two problems with Mourinho's candidacy. One of them is that he doesn't seem to be one for long-term planning at a club. In this context, Jonathan Wilson has quoted Bela Guttmann's maxim that, "the third season [as the manager of a club]" is always fatal, and Mourinho seems to have embraced it. He has presided over six teams in twelve years. The Manchester United job requires someone looking for marriage, but Mourinho is someone with a reputation for commitment issues.

Here's the other problem with Mourinho: it's that he seems to leave a pretty high body count in every job that he departs from. It’s not as though Ferguson has been a stranger to confrontation in his career, but the drama that surrounds Mourinho is often akin to the closing scenes of a spaghetti Western.

Granted, Real Madrid and Chelsea are not so much football clubs as furnaces for the ego, but there are several managers who have left these places without acrimony. Mourinho commands formidable loyalty from his players -- almost love, when you look at the emotional reactions of Didier Drogba and Marco Materazzi to his departure from their clubs -- but he also comes with what they call "baggage". When he is managing a team, it seems as if he is making just one stop on his procession to greatness.

For better or worse, it looks as though Manchester United are looking for a homebody, and that is where Guardiola really seems to fit the bill. The curious thing in all this is that Mourinho and Guardiola, to some extent, represent different but complementary elements of Sir Ferguson. Early in his career, at East Stirlingshire and Aberdeen, Ferguson was the iconoclast, the outsider taking a thrillingly successful pop at Europe's elite, before settling into the role as institutional cornerstone.

Guardiola has never shown such a taste for anarchy, nor has he had to, and there is no sense as yet that Mourinho will grow old gracefully in his managerial career. The Portgueuse master may ask Old Trafford, to quote Lenny Kravitz, "Are You Gonna Go My Way". At present, unfortunately for him, the answer looks like it will be 'No'.

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