Jose Mourinho criticises Manchester United transfer policy: 'I gave a list to my club months ago'
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Published 29/07/2018 at 09:20 GMT
Jose Mourinho has launched a thinly-veiled attack on Manchester United’s transfer policy this summer following the 4-1 pre-season loss to Liverpool.
Jose Mourinho is on tour with Manchester United in the United States
Image credit: PA Sport
United have brought in highly-rated central midfielder Fred from Shakhtar Donetsk this summer, as well as promising right-back Diogo Dalot from Porto, but Mourinho says he wants more additions.
“I would like to have two more players,” the United manager said. “I think I am not going to get two. I think that it’s possible I will have one.”
And in a comment presumably directed at chairman Ed Woodward, Mourinho said he gave his list of desired targets to the club months ago… only for few of those additions to be subsequently made.
I gave a list to my club of five names a few months ago and I wait to see if it’s possible to have one of these players. If it’s possible, it’s possible. If it’s not, it’s not. If it’s possible, it’s good. If not then we keep fighting and working and believing in the players that we have.
United put in a sub-standard performance against Liverpool in Michigan, but the club’s manager excused the defeat by saying that the squad available to him was a shadow of that he would expect to have when the season starts.
“This is not our team ... We started the game with almost half of the players who are not even going to belong to our squad on August 9. They will not be here,” Mourinho said. “This is not our squad. Reinforcements, you mean players that I would like to buy, that’s another thing, but this is not my squad. This is not even half my squad, or 30% of it. So don’t look to this.
“Today we have four or five players who are dead because they care with the club and try to give everything, even risking themselves, because they don’t want to let all the kids play by themselves against Milan, against Liverpool. As an example, Eric Bailly was not going to play and when he saw that [Chris] Smalling was injured in the warm up, he decided by himself that he didn’t want another kid on the pitch. It was not fair on Alexis [Sánchez] and [Juan] Mata and [Ander] Herrera.
“We are just trying to play these matches the best we can, and I think the boys did very well until the gasoline went. When it went, it was goodbye.
Liverpool had the majority of their players, and they rotated their players. [Mo] Salah played 45, then 45. We can’t do it. Herrera 90 minutes, [Andreas] Pereira 90 minutes ... gasoline over. So what did this game give me? Nothing at all.
United have two more scheduled pre-season fixtures, against Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, before their Premier League season begins against Leicester City on Friday 10 August.
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