Manchester United Manager Jose Mourinho met the media a couple hours ago ahead of Saturday’s match against Southampton FC. The video of the entire session is available at this link.
The first topic discussed was Liverpool buying Virgil van Dijk from Saints, United’s opponents tomorrow. Mourinho took an obvious swipe at Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, for the comments he made a year and a half ago about United breaking the then world transfer fee record in the Paul Pogba deal.
“If you bring one player in for £100m and he gets injured, then it all goes through the chimney,” Klopp said in July of 2016.
“The day that this is football, I’m not in a job anymore, because the game is about playing together.
“That is how everybody in football understands it. You always want to have the best, but building the group is necessary to be successful.
“Other clubs can go out and spend more money and collect top players. I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I could spend that money.
“I don’t know exactly how much money we could spend because nobody has told me, ‘No, you can’t do this.’
“If I spend money, it is because I am trying to build a team, a real team. Barcelona did it. You can win championships, you can win titles, but there is a manner in which you want it.”
That was then, this is now. Van Dijk, at £75 million broke the world record for a defender and any player for Liverpool. His fee is just three-quarters of the way to that 100 million figure.
“You know, I think the one that speaks about it in a specific way has to be Jurgen, and if I was one of you I would ask him about his comments about one year ago,” Mourinho said as he took his dig at the German.
“I am not saying with 10 years ago but three years ago, to compare is impossible. You cannot compare the realities,” Mourinho continued as he then assessed the transfer market as a whole.
“Virgil van Dijk is the most expensive defender in history of football, was he better than Maldini, Bergomi or Ferdinand? You cannot say that. It is just the way the market is and you pay or you don’t pay.
“If you pay, obviously you pay a crazy amount of money, but if you don’t you don’t have the player. Is as simple as that, so no critics at all about what Liverpool did, is just the way it is.”
Interesting stuff; the rivalry escalates another notch today.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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