Last night Manchester United Manager Jose Mourinho met the media to preview Sunday’s match against Swansea City. The Portugese promised some summer transfer window signings, so he’s re-assuring fans that reinforcements are on the way to his extremely injury depleted squad.
So injury depleted that the manager himself might have to play, Mourinho joked. However, Mourinho says there will be additions this summer transfer window and that they will join up with the current players to win “big things.”
“The group, next July 9, when we meet again for next season, is a strong group. So the new players, when they will arrive, will find a group more ready to go for big things,” he said (Here’s a link to the video of the Mourinho press conference).
It is well known that summer transfer target #1 is Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann, and that his friend and countryman Paul Pogba will be instrumental to recruiting him. It’s also been reported that United will be looking for another forward in addition to Griezmann. Also, Marquinhos and Andrea Belotti are widely assumed to be transfer targets.
Flashing back to February 10th, in the run-up to the Watford clash, Mourinho then said the club could buy up to four players this summer (video at this link).
“First of all, yesterday I had to ask a friend about churn because I had no idea,” Mourinho said. “It’s a new word for my vocabulary, you have to learn every time you can and I thank Ed for that word because I didn’t have an idea.
“He’s completely right, of course we speak about it, of course we speak about what next and we know that we have a squad that like every squad needs changes.”
“But we know also that our squad has potential, our squad has good players, many of them in the best age, the age of evolution and it’s not our philosophy, independent of the numbers, can you spend one, 10 or 100 million, independent of the numbers, it’s also the philosophy, the idea and we look at it in this way.
“We prefer to bring two, three or four players, but good players, players that feel an idea, a football that we try to play, that can improve our squad, we are not interested in sell sign six or seven and buy six or seven and from this six or seven, only one or two are great quality or the others are the same as the ones we are selling.”
“We are not going to play this game, we are stable, so we think that our market in the summer will be soft, will be natural, some players to leave, some players to come but in a very natural way so I think the word Ed used was a good one.”
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 to WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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