Amir Khan is optimistic he can take on Manny Pacquiao and claimed Floyd Mayweather Jr "chickened out" of fighting him before retiring.

Khan had made no secret of his desire to enter the ring with Mayweather, but the American ended his glittering career after beating Andre Berto last month.

The 28-year-old Briton has expressed his frustration that he was unable to lock horns with Mayweather, who he believes was there for the taking in the twilight of his boxing career.

Khan has instead turned his attention to taking on Pacquiao in what he believes will be a fight to remember.

He told Boxing News: "The Pacquiao fight, basically my team's taking care of everything. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. I'm one of those guys, I'll fight anyone.

"Whoever's in front of me. Pacquiao is a fight I'd like to have because styles make fights. Me and Pacquiao used to train together as well, used to spar together, we are friends but sometimes friends have to fight each other.

"At this moment in time I think it can happen, it's all about just doing the little things, contracts and stuff. I've left it to my team. My team takes care of it. It's a good fight for me.

"I wanted the Floyd Mayweather fight. Floyd in a way, he chickened out, he didn't give me the fight. Three years he was saying he was going to give me the fight, then he didn't give me the fight.

"So obviously Manny Pacquiao I believe after Floyd Mayweather is the best fighter. So I want to fight the best names."

Khan taunted Mayweather by taking a dig at the 38-year-old, who quit with a perfect record of 49 bouts without beating beaten to equal the record set by Rocky Marciano.

"If you look at when he fought against Berto. He was making a few mistakes, he was getting caught a lot, something I've never seen before. Mayweather normally is a sharp fighter and never normally gets caught," he added.

"But you could see him, maybe the age is getting to him, maybe that's why he's called it a day and maybe that's one of the reasons why he didn't fight me.

"Because he knew that Amir Khan's going to give him the biggest problems in his career."