Jose Mourinho admits Man United no longer have power to dominate English football… especially in transfer market

Under Sir Alex Ferguson the club’s name and incomparable financial might gave them the pick of the best players in the Premier League.

That time has gone now with other clubs having played catch up and in some cases overtaken the once dominant force in the country.

Mourinho uses Spurs as an example to emphasise his point, a club who United used to plunder for their best talent as in the cases of Michael Carrick and Dimitar Berbatov.

Mourinho said: “Is Manchester United by its history, by its dimension, bigger than Tottenham? With all respect Tottenham is an amazing club. I think everybody would say yes.

“Can you buy Tottenham’s best players? No, because they don’t sell. Of course, they are so powerful that they can say no. A few years ago, who was Tottenham’s best player? Michael Carrick. And a few years later, who was the best player? Berbatov.



“Can we go there now and bring Harry Kane? Dele Alli, Eriksen, Son? Can we go there and bring those players here? No. So who is more powerful now? Them or us?

“I know that we have to do better than what we are doing, absolutely, we have to do better, but one thing is to do better and another is to compare ourselves with what Manchester United was in the past because it is impossible. Not just because Manchester United was fantastic, but because there was a big difference to the others and now it is not like that.”


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It is not just clubs considered to be regularly in the top six either.

United tried but failed to get Harry Maguire from Leicester City this summer, having already lost Riyad Mahrez to Manchester City.

It is a situation that would have been unthinkable had United could calling for one of The Foxes stars a few years back.

Mourinho said: “Football has changed. It’s more difficult to buy players of a high, high, high level. The clubs are more powerful. The clubs don’t want to sell, and to sell is to go to absolutely incredible levels.

“Before the smaller clubs were almost begging the big clubs: ‘Get my best players. I need to sell. Please, you are powerful. Buy my best player’. At this moment, they don’t want to sell.”

Having said that only Manchester City have eclipsed Mourinho’s £370million splurge in the transfer market at United.

And he was undoubtedly referring to the allegations of them circumnavigating Financial Fair Play rules as a reason as to why they can do it.

He said: “It’s more difficult to make the team better and stronger with buying unless you do what some clubs do and for some reason they can do this and others cannot, which is say: I need a right back and a left back send away the ones you have and buy four at the same time. It’s difficult. We do what we can.”

Pushed as to why they cannot do the same he appeared to make reference to the recent FootieLeaks about City and FFP commenting:

“I cannot say the answer because one of the answers you had a few weeks ago. I don’t want to speak about that. But one of the answers you had a few weeks ago. “

Mourinho says the club need to improve on how they develop players and identify targets to improve the level of the squad.

He said: “I think it takes time to organise the club in that direction and it also takes time for the development of the players.”

Asked if the club still has a big jump to make in that regard he said: “In that regard? Yes.”

The problem for Mourinho is that when United come calling a club puts an extra nought on the end of a fee, but to then go for the cheaper option is not right for a club of their size.


He said: “The transfer market is very difficult unless the clubs want to go to what I call crazy numbers.

“You have no chance in the market unless you go to crazy numbers, or instead you go to what you call the second level players and still have crazy numbers, but that second level is the level people say, and I agree, that’s not what Manchester United is.”

Mourinho takes his team to Southampton today with a 14 point gap between themselves in seventh and leaders City. They are already left chasing a top four place and the gap to that is seventh.

Mourinho said: “We want to improve our position in the table, we want to close the gap to the top four, we want to be smelling these positions, if not there, behind them just smelling for the second part of the season.”

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