Manchester United caretaker manager Ralf Rangnick is in contact with successor Erik ten Hag via a third party.

United are focusing on finishing the season next weekend and any meeting would have to wait until after their final match against Crystal Palace. But Rangnick was not part of the summit meeting in Amsterdam last week, which included director of football John Murtough, Steve McClaren, who is likely to join ten Hag at United, and ten Hag's Ajax assistant, Mitchell van der Gaag, who will also be an assistant at Old Trafford.

Rangnick has been in contact with ten Hag via an intermediary, Lars Kornetka, who will be Rangnick's No 2 in the Austria job, which he takes up next month, says the Daily Mail.

Kornetka worked with Ten Hag at Bayern Munich in 2013-14, when the Dutchman was in charge of Bayern's B team and Kornetka was a video analyst and the pair remain close.

As such, there is the chance that Ten Hag will get the full low down on what has been a disastrous season at United, with dressing room politics understood to have contributed to their worst Premier League season.

But the fact that no formal contact has taken place yet calls into question just how seriously the club are taking Rangnick's consultancy role, which runs until 2024 and which was announced to great fanfare alongside his appointment as interim manager last November.

Rangnick is understood to be keen to play a full role as a consultant and accepted the Austria job partly as it doesn't have the same demands as day-to-day club management and would allow him to be a meaningful presence at United.

But he wasn't involved in the appointment of ten Hag and has no previous relationship with him. Unless United's hierarchy are saving talks to the end of the season, at present it appears that his role will be minimal.