“He must think I’m a great guy. He must think that, because otherwise he would not have given me so much … he must have a very high opinion of me.”

José Mourinho, on God, 2011.

He always did have a super-sized ego, José. It was part of his charm at times and, in other moments, part of his downfall, and when we are talking about someone who once said he could not return to Stamford Bridge because it would risk a crush from all his well-wishers it is tempting to wonder how all that braggadocio is holding up when it has been made blindingly obvious over the past few weeks that the job he desperately wants may be out of reach.

Has there been the odd moment of insecurity? Where else does Mourinho see himself if it is true that Manchester United do not like him as much as he likes them? Does he understand why? Has it crossed his mind that, beyond United, it is difficult to come up with a club where he would be a natural fit?

Just think about how scarce the options are if the relevant people at Old Trafford have put the cross through his name with permanent marker pen and, for Mourinho, there is a serious danger here that he has burned so many bridges he is now occupying a managerial no man’s land.

Porto, where he came to prominence, need a new manager after sacking Julen Lopetegui and installing Rui Barros on a caretaker basis. But why would Mourinho return to the league where Sir Alex Ferguson once noted the lack of competition by asking whether the champions bought the title in Tesco (“every time they buy a bottle of milk it is three points”)? Yes, there would be an emotional pull. Yet Mourinho outgrew the Primeira Liga a long time ago if you bear in mind that the game between Arouca and Estoril drew a crowd of 705 and that all but five of the Portuguese teams have average attendances below 6,000.

Real Madrid have already overlooked him in favour of Zinedine Zidane – an authentic Bernabéu great but a rookie in management terms, with none of Mourinho’s trophy-getting experience. Barcelona have come to think of Mourinho as permanently unemployable and if it came as a slight surprise that Bayern Munich had announced Carlo Ancelotti’s appointment for next season within two days of Mourinho being fired, without even wishing to interview him, don’t forget what the Portuguese said about Pep Guardiola working for a club “where a kit man can be coach and win the title”. They don’t forget that kind of stuff at Bayern.

So where else? Paris Saint-Germain have been mentioned but Laurent Blanc has put together a team that is on course to win the title in record time and should probably be expected to eliminate Chelsea from the Champions League. Blanc’s new contract should be announced soon and that would be another club to scratch off the list. A few days ago, I asked a colleague at L’Équipe whether Mourinho’s availability might change anything. The reply was emphatic. “No chance,” he said.

Would Italy attract him? Mourinho won five trophies in three seasons at Internazionale and shared a rare bond with the players he led to the Champions League. But that does not necessarily mean he liked working in Serie A. “I am very happy at Inter,” he once said. “But I am not happy in Italian football – because I don’t like it and they don’t like me. Simple.”

No, we know where he wants to manage. Next weekend, the annual Football Writers’ Association tribute dinner will be held in honour of Patrick Vieira. Two years ago, it was Mourinho at the top table and he said something that night that has stuck with me ever since. His wife, Matilde, was in the next seat. Their children, Matilde and José junior, were on the same table and so was Louis van Gaal, who had flown in from Amsterdam to be one of the guest speakers.

Mourinho was moved to tears by the tributes and gave a long, emotional speech about how happy he was to be back at Chelsea and managing in the country where he liked it best. This was the place for him, he said. But it was his final line that lingered in the memory. “It is not a threat,” he said, “but if they sack me, I will stay in England and go to another club, a possible rival.”

It was, Mourinho said, a “warning” and it was the same again last season, with Chelsea on the way to the championship and no indication whatsoever about the way everything would subsequently unravel. “If one day he [Roman Abramovich] tells me: ‘José, it’s enough’ I will go to my house in London and wait for another English club. When I left the first time I had lots of countries to go to and lots of clubs to go to. In this moment, I have another 19 clubs in the Premier League and the clubs in the Championship.”

Well, Bristol City are in the market for a new manager and perhaps Charlton Athletic missed a trick not putting in a call. But let’s be clear what he meant. Mourinho has always seen himself managing at Old Trafford and if United felt the same way his availability could hardly have been better timed given that it coincided with their worst run of form for a quarter of a century.

Instead, United took a long, hard look and turned their backs. It hasn’t happened and maybe never will. If United don’t want him when they have been straying dangerously close to a full-on crisis, Bayern have looked elsewhere, Real prefer Zidane and the other superpowers are cold-shouldering him, there is one outstanding question: where does that leave Mourinho?

In trouble, is the short answer. Manchester City are preparing to usher in Guardiola and if that falls through they would rather stick with Manuel Pellegrini. Arsenal share Barcelona’s haughty disdain for Mourinho and there are no signs anyway that Arsène Wenger, at 66, is slowing down. Liverpool have Jürgen Klopp and are another club who view Mourinho through cold, suspicious eyes.

A few weeks ago, I raised the question of whether the Football Association would dare consider him should Euro 2016 be Roy Hodgson’s last involvement with the England team. It subsequently became clear that Mourinho wanted a return to management immediately rather than having any more time off. “He will not be taking a sabbatical, he isn’t tired, he doesn’t need it, he is very positive, and is already looking forward,” a statement from his advisers said, adding that he would continue living in England and keeping up to speed with the Premier League. Mourinho could not have made it any clearer if he had turned up outside the offices of Ed Woodward, United’s chief executive, with a neon sign around his neck reading: Open To Offers.

Since then, United have followed up their elimination from a moderate Champions League group and a humbling result at Bournemouth with defeats against Norwich City and Stoke City. After four successive losses, a goalless draw against the worst Chelsea team in years was optimistically heralded as a new start, followed by a scratchy win over 17th-placed Swansea City, a dismal FA Cup tie against League One’s Sheffield United and the 3-3 draw with a Newcastle United side third from bottom of the league.

Van Gaal’s team have won five out of their past 18 matches. Their run of 10 home games without a first-half goal stretches back to 30 September – a penalty, in case you were wondering – and it is startling, to say the least, when Van Gaal says he, too, has felt “very bored” at times. It is the most joyless United team in decades. Yet Mourinho’s phone still hasn’t rung. They still appear to think he is too toxic, that it is not worth the hassle and that they are better off sticking with Van Gaal rather than the man Unai Emery, in his time at Valencia, described as “inaccessible, disrespectful and without a minimum sense of dignity”.

All of which leaves Mourinho in a position he can never have envisaged. It is a strange set of events but, unless the mindset changes at Old Trafford, the best trophy-getter in the business has nowhere to go and nobody – or at least nobody he may fancy – who wants him.

There is no easy way back and bearing in mind the loneliness of the out-of-work manager it is probably a good job he enjoys his own company so much.

Newcastle must hope Shelvey’s video nasty is a one-off

A clip has been doing the rounds on the internet from Jonjo Shelvey’s final game for Swansea City, the 3-2 defeat at Oxford United in the FA Cup, when the League Two side were attacking on the edge of the penalty area and a player who apparently harbours serious ambitions of representing England in Euro 2016 had the chance to close them down.

What happened next was extraordinary. Shelvey (circled) bent forward and put his hands on his thighs, watching the game go on around him. Otherwise, he did not move an inch as two Oxford players moved the ball between each other and one dribbled into the left side of the area – at which point, having made absolutely zero effort to follow either man, Shelvey straightened up and began wandering back with the unconcerned air of someone who probably didn’t realise someone might stick the footage online.

Newcastle United’s new £12m signing is correct when he says that Swansea might regret selling him to another side in the same relegation fight and, likewise, it is not easy to understand the logic of the Welsh club when Alan Curtis, the stopgap appointment after Garry Monk’s sacking, now has the job properly when he has reached the age of 61 without working as a manager.

Both decisions are risky and it is perfectly plausible that Shelvey will become a useful addition to Newcastle’s midfield while Curtis, already floating the idea that he will move aside if someone else becomes available, is unable to prevent Swansea dropping into the Championship.

At the same time, there is not a great deal of evidence to suggest that Shelvey is the ideal man for a club that is being sucked into the relegation quicksands.