Manchester City chief Garry Cook insists they haven't spoken to anyone about replacing manager Mark Hughes.

Cook told The Times: "Mark has done an outstanding job. If you look back over the season, people will say 'not great', but the mechanics of having a great season were interrupted by things we didn't know were going to happen. We called it the bowling-ball syndrome. Every time you opened a cupboard, another one landed on your head. Mark has dealt with it exceptionally well.

"People talk about the previous season under Sven-Göran Eriksson, but for the second half of it we were close to relegation form. Since then it's a clear upward trend and that will continue.

"Mark had an appraisal of his performance for the year, like any employee. We didn't fill in forms, but we talked about challenges. When you go through that process of review, names come up, but that is only ever done internally.

"There was no need to take that process externally because we have a manager in place that we're very happy with. We have never talked to José Mourinho or anyone else. The only manager we have spoken to is Mark Hughes."