Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is hopeful Juan Mata will stay at Manchester United after the club submitted their final contract offer.
The MEN revealed on Thursday Mata, 31, has received a one-year extension with the option of an additional year to stay at United, having entered the last two months of his existing deal.
Mata is understood to want to stay but preferably wants a minimum two-year contract that has proved a sticking point during negotations. United will release Antonio Valencia on a free at the end of his contract in the summer and Ander Herrera is believed to have agreed a pre-contract with Paris Saint-Germain.
When asked about the final offer Mata had received, Solskjaer told Sky Sports : "Yeah, fantastic person, fantastic player. Of course it's up to him, he knows I've had words with him, he knows how highly I regard him.
"And I was so pleased for him last week. It would've been so much nicer to talk about Juan scoring the winning goal against Chelsea and his performance. He's a top, top pro and let's see if they manage to agree."
When it was suggested Solskjaer looked 'hopeful' of an agreement, Solskjaer added: "Yeah of course, he's had a few years here now and showed to everyone his qualities as a person and a player."
The MEN previously reported United have also offered Mata an ambassadorial role at the end of his playing career and the Spain international selflessly told the MEN last month he wanted to put United's run-in ahead of his own situation at the club.
"I don't think right now is a good moment to speak about it," Mata said. "Because I prefer to put the team before myself and what we are going to face now is important enough to be focused only on that.
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"There have been some rumours about myself and other teammates over the last week, so I'm not the one who is going to put more questions or raise more comments with what I say.
"So I prefer to put the team before me and focus on the important task that we have ahead, which is Barcelona. And that's it. I'm sure the fans prefer that because we all want to beat Barcelona, we want to have our heads focused on Barcelona.
"And, again, I don't want to raise any more noise that, to be fair, in the last weeks there has been quite a lot."
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