Manchester United Manager Jose Mourinho held his first news conference of the summer yesterday at UCLA, where the team is currently training for their summer exhibition tour. During the Q&A Mourinho revealed his desire to sign two more players this season, complementing the acquisitions of Romelu Lukaku and Victor Lindelof.
Who could those two players be? Well, we know that Real Madrid striker Alvaro Morata won’t be one of them. It’s no secret that United and Real were negotiating about Morata this summer, but they just couldn’t hammer out a deal.
Once United brought Romelu Lukaku over from Everton for £75 million (a deal potentially worth a world record £90 million if/when the add-ons kick in), they dropped out of the running for Morata.
Mourinho made comments yesterday implying that Real’s asking price for Morata was just too high .
“I don’t like to speak about players who aren’t ours, because Morata is not our player. I am nobody to speak about players from Real Madrid,” Mourinho opened up with, before continuing:
“Yes, we have had interest, that is obvious and it’s public. We have not come to an economic agreement, that is obvious as well, but it’s Real Madrid’s right to ask for their players the amount of money that they want. We do not determine what the price is of a player of Real Madrid, Real Madrid do that, and we didn’t arrive at an agreement with Real Madrid.”
“I do not criticize Madrid and I am not going to criticize my board because my board has made the offer and they have tried to reach an agreement during a time, and they didn’t come to an agreement. It’s simple.”
United and Real have been staying in the same city and training at the same site this summer, and the close proximity has created acrimony. The two clubs have been squabbling over who has the better accommodations and temporary facilities.
They’ll face the L.A. Galaxy of MLS in their first preseason friendly tonight. Rumored United targets are Eric Dier of Tottenham Hotspur, Ivan Perisic of Inter Milan and Nemanja Matic of Chelsea.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV.
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