Madrid, Dec 24 : Spanish football club Zaragoza announced Thursday that negotiations with Victor Munoz had broken down - and that Jose Gay would be their coach until the end of the season.

It seemed Wednesday that Victor was all set to return to Zaragoza for a second spell as coach. However, negotiations then broke down because of disagreement about the length of the contract.

According to sports dailies AS and Marca Thursday, Victor wanted the contract to run until 2011, whilst Zaragoza were only prepared to offer him a second season if results drastically improved this season.

Early Thursday the club announced that nursery team coach Gay would continue until the end of the season.

Gay - like Victor a former Zaragoza player - has no first division coaching experience, and his first match in charge saw "Los Manos" crash 6-0 away to Real Madrid.

Zaragoza are second from bottom and in big trouble. Marcelino Garcia, the coach who guided them out of the second division last June, was sacked a week ago.(DPA)