Manchester United have been dealt a second blow in the space of 24 hours in their search for a new permanent manager as the ‘perfect’ option has joined Thomas Tuchel in (nearly) committing their future.

Tuchel emerged as one of the top candidates to take the reins at Old Trafford should interim boss Michael Carrick not be offered the job on a full-time basis after impressing with four wins and a draw from his first five games in charge.

But the FA announced on Thursday that Tuchel has signed a contract extension until 2028with his original deal with England was set to expire after the World Cup this summer.

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Roberto De Zerbi is another manager “guaranteed” to be in the running according to Fabrizio Romano, but Man Utd look set to be denied the man deemed the “outstanding candidate” by Gary Neville.

“With these last 12 years being a period of massive underperformance for Manchester United managers, there are certain boxes the next candidate now needs to tick,” Neville wrote in the Overlap newsletter last month.

“1. You have to be able to handle the media and the noise which comes with this club. It is what it is, so get over it and deal with it. It’s why you’re getting paid the big bucks.

“2. You have to show that you can have success getting into the top four, that you can cope with Champions League football, and that you can get the best out of a group of players that will include egos and superstars.

“3. You must understand the Premier League and English football culture because it’s different to competing in many of the European leagues.

“4. You also have to understand the Manchester United way, which means you have to be a glass-half-full kind of manager. Be positive and prepared to take risks and play with pace and excitement. In all likelihood that is going to a variation of 4-4-1-1 / 4-2-3-1.

“You have got to be pretty special to tick all four of those boxes and, as such, the outstanding candidate for me would be Carlo Ancelotti, even if it would mean potentially delaying his arrival until late July if Brazil reached the World Cup final.

“No-one comes as close to fulfilling everything laid out above than he does. Ironically the club met with Carlo shortly before his retirement in 2013 and we could have short circuited this entire process and started with him at the beginning of the cycle.

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“But by that stage he was close to agreeing to joining Real Madrid for his first spell in charge and so what might have been a perfect appointment never happened.”

The Athleticrevealedon Thursday night that Ancelotti is ‘set to sign a new four-year contract with Brazil’ and while ‘the paperwork for the deal has not yet been finalised it is now seen as a formality’.

Ancelotti oversaw Brazil’s last four World Cup qualifiers, beating Chile and Paraguay, drawing with Ecuador and losing to Bolivia as Brazil secured their place at FIFA’s showcase tournament this summer.