Spoiler alert: Jose Mourinho has pretty much laid out what to expect from Manchester United in the summer transfer window.
The good ol’ days of the club being able to poach their Premier League rivals’ most talented players is now gone, according to the Special One.
He doesn’t envisage the Red Devils making deals like Robin van Persie from Arsenal or Michael Carrick from Tottenham Hotspur any time soon.
Why, you ask? Partly because the times have moved on, the market has evolved and making similar moves in the window to ones they made a decade ago just isn’t possible, but also because, as he explained to the Manchester Evening News, England is not Germany.
It makes sense, if you hear him out.
“That is the new football. When previously you were speaking about Sir Alex Ferguson’s time, this is not Germany.”
“In Germany, Bayern Munich start winning the league in the summer. They go to Borussia Dortmund every year and buy their best player. One day they go there and get Robert Lewandowski. The next year, they go there, Mario Gotze. The next year they go there, Mats Hummels. So they win the league in the summer.”
As much as Manchester United fans might like to see it happen, Mourinho knows that United can’t become the Bayern Munich of the Premier League. Those days are long gone.
“Do you think I can go to Tottenham and bring two Tottenham players to kill Tottenham? I cannot. I cannot go to Arsenal and bring the two best Arsenal players. I cannot go to Chelsea and bring two of the players that I love very very much. That time is over.
“That time is over so the situation of starting being champion by attacking your direct opponents in this country is over. It is over and if you get a player from these clubs, you get a player that club does not want to keep. You cannot hurt any more your direct opponents.”
So after all that ruling out pretty much every star in the English top flight, Mourinho soundly explained the type of players who can expect them to go after. In short, it will be less pursuing of talent and more taking it when it’s offered, but only if it’s worth it.
“Obviously Real Madrid sell who they want to sell, Barcelona sell who they want to sell, Bayern Munich sell who they want to sell, Paris Saint-Germain sell who they want to sell. So then it is more difficult to have a very good market.”
