Manchester United attempting to tie David De Gea down until 2023, confirms Jose Mourinho

The Spain international continues to be a transfer target for Real Madrid, the club he almost joined in September 2015

Manchester United are keen to tie down the Spaniard (Getty Images)

Jose Mourinho has indicated that Manchester United are seeking to extend goalkeeper David de Gea’s contract.

The Spain international continues to be a transfer target for Real Madrid, the club he almost joined in September 2015.

De Gea, 27, has a contract that expires at the end of next season, although United do have the option to extend it for a further year.

United manager Mourinho, though, says that the club are keen to negotiate a new contract soon, with the club understood to want to sign him up until 2023.

“We are not going to let the option disappear,” Mourinho said. “A goalkeeper like he is, obviously at a club that wants to get better and better, we are not going to let that year option go away.

“But obviously, we are going to try to give him a contract that keeps him here, for much more than the length of that option.”

Asked if contract negotiations with De Gea were under way, Mourinho said: “I don’t know. I just trust the board and the work they do. I don’t negotiate with players, I don’t discuss numbers in contracts, I just say what is obvious, and any of you could say the same, that he is to keep.”

Mourinho, meanwhile, has suggested that he sometimes regrets the verbal confrontations he has with rival managers, while adding that he does not believe that he is always at fault.

United’s manager has become involved in an increasingly bitter trading of insults with Chelsea head coach Antonio Conte over the past two weeks.

It culminated in Mourinho declaring that he had “contempt” for Conte on Friday, having earlier implied that he felt that the Italian was a “clown” because of the exuberant nature of his touchline celebrations.

Mourinho was involved in a bitter war of words with Chelsea manager Antonio Conte (Getty)

Conte, for his part, accused the United manager of going senile, with Mourinho responding by referring to the four-month suspension that Chelsea’s manager received in 2012 for failing to report match-fixing while at Siena. The Italian, who was cleared by a court of any wrongdoing in 2016, retorted by calling Mourinho a “little man”.

Asked if he enjoyed these verbal battles, Mourinho said: “I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy it.

“When I start [it], I take the responsibilities of that, and I’ve started many times. When I don’t start [it], it’s quite funny for me to see other people on the other side acting like victims when they are not the victims. But really, I don’t enjoy it.”

Mourinho pointed out that he apologised to Claudio Ranieri, his predecessor as Chelsea manager, after suggesting in 2008 that he had the mentality “of someone who doesn’t need to win”.

He said: “Sometimes, it’s my fault. Sometimes, it’s the other manager’s fault.

“And in my case, when I think it’s my fault and I realise that I should behave in a different way, I’m the first one to apologise, like I did with Ranieri when I had the chance.

“That’s why our relationship went from bad to good, and from good to very good, because I was man enough to apologise.”