Sir Alex Ferguson will be asked to take a prominent role in deciding Manchester United's next manager despite an acknowledgement within the club that he was responsible for choosing the wrong man last time.

United are deliberating between Louis van Gaal and Carlo Ancelotti to replace David Moyes after the former Everton manager was sacked in a 7.40am meeting with the club's chief executive, Ed Woodward. Diego Simeone, the Atlético Madrid coach, is also being considered but United are leaning towards a more experienced candidate and their initial discussions, involving Ferguson, have concluded that the job has come too early for Ryan Giggs, even if he exceeds expectations in his four games as interim manager.

Laurent Blanc has also been ruled out, despite Ferguson's close ties with the Paris Saint-Germain coach, and it has been made clear that the final say this time will belong to Woodward, supported by the United's American directors, rather than the most successful manager in the club's history.

Ferguson will, however, still be an influential voice because the club consider it would be foolish to discount him, even though there is now an acceptance at boardroom level that he made a serious error of judgment choosing Moyes last year when José Mourinho was available.

United's directors have fleetingly discussed Mourinho's position at Chelsea but are also acutely aware that they would almost certainly be wasting their time trying to extract him from Chelsea and their attentions are on Ancelotti's position at Real Madrid and Van Gaal's availability after leading Holland at the World Cup. "There is not a vast pool to choose from," a high-level source at Old Trafford admitted.

While it counts against Van Gaal that he would not be able to start until mid-July, the 62-year-old is still regarded as the leading candidate and has already let it be known he wants the job. However, it is not true that anyone from Old Trafford has already met him. The process of speaking to prospective managers will begin in the next couple of weeks and one of the reasons Moyes was removed now, rather than waiting until the end of the season, was that the club did not want to do it behind his back and risk the embarrassment of being caught in the way, for example, that happened with Manchester City in the changeover from Roberto Mancini to Manuel Pellegrini.

United now privately accept it was a mistake bringing in someone with Moyes' inexperience and believe it is mandatory the next manager has worked at the highest level. Simeone's record this season makes him difficult to ignore, although he is not a frontrunner. Jürgen Klopp has said he does not want to leave Borussia Dortmund and United intend to respect that position. Antonio Conte, the Juventus coach, has been learning English, with a desire to work in the Premier League, but has not featured prominently in United's discussions so far.

Ferguson has a good relationship with Ancelotti and was scathing of Chelsea when the Italian was sacked a year after winning the Double. Ancelotti's position might depend on how Madrid, third in la Liga and preparing for a Champions League semi-final with Bayern Munich, finish the season. His high salary would not put off United.

The decision to fire Moyes was taken in a conference call involving Woodward, the Glazers, Ferguson and the club's other directors on Sunday night, directly after the 2-0 defeat to Everton. The relevant people agreed to discuss the matter again on Monday rather than making an emotional decision but there was already a clear consensus that Moyes had to go.

Ferguson was asked for his opinion but it was made clear to him that his colleagues had already made up their minds. Most of the directors had lost faith in Moyes in February and Woodward's opinion was that he could have been sacked, justifiably, any time over the last two months.

Moyes learned his fate when the story broke on various newspaper websites on Monday and is particularly unhappy about the way it was handled. He had a brief conversation with the club's press officer, Karen Shotbolt, but nobody in a senior position contacted him for the rest of the day.

Everything was confirmed when Woodward broke the news at the training ground and Richard Bevan, the chief executive of the League Managers' Association, was then invited to join them to discuss a compensation package.