Carlos Tevez looks set to make a straight choice between Manchester City and Chelsea, according to adviser Kia Joorabchian.
Manchester United revealed on Saturday that the 25-year-old Argentina international would be leaving Old Trafford after they failed to agree a new deal, but Tevez has frequently stated that he wants to stay in England.
And, although he will not join Liverpool because of the rivalry with United, Joorabchian says he is now looking at City and Chelsea.
“We ruled Liverpool out because of the competitive nature of Manchester United and Liverpool,” he told TalkSport.
"He has a lot of respect and a lot of love for the fans of Man United and I think he would rule Liverpool out as being the biggest competitor.
"City and Chelsea probably would be the two clubs that are on the table.
"City have obviously been in contact with us. I've spoken to [City executive chairman] Garry [Cook] and to Mark [Hughes] on several occasions.
"We haven't talked to them about a contract. We haven't talked to Chelsea either about that because we've respected the fact that Carlos is a Manchester United player.
"Without getting into the point of whether he's going to City or Chelsea or wherever, the issue is that I think Carlos wants to go to a club which has real ambition, a club which is showing intent, a club which he can help achieve great things.
"City have shown a lot of ambition with the players they've brought in in the last year or so, and Chelsea are also showing a lot of ambition – they want to win the Champions League. Both have that ambition.
"What is important is Carlos is very happy in England. He's extremely settled down, his family is in very good shape here, they love the country. He wants to stay here.
"He's basically given away with the two European clubs that have come to him. He hasn't totally disregarded the option but he's put it down his pecking order and I think he'd want to stay in The Premier League."
Joorabchian also revealed that the deal with United fell through because the officials at the club were unwilling to allow Tevez further time to make his choice.
“They didn’t really give him any offers for two years,” he said.
“Over the duration of the two years, there was a lot of talk about signing him but we didn’t actually get to the point of receiving any offers for him at all.
“The offer of Manchester United was a very good offer. It came ten days ago. It was the loan price of £9 million plus the option price of £25.5 million.
“They made him a good contract, but Carlos needed time really.
“I just want to make it very, very clear: we never – at any time – asked them for more money or any kind of money.
“Even after they made their offer, we never asked them for more money.
“We never spoke about that.
“Carlos just felt that, with the last two years, they hadn’t made the effort to sign him and he needed a little bit of time.
“I think they were under a little bit of a time restraint with the situation that’s been going on and we couldn’t get there in time.”