Jose Mourinho already made his thoughts clear on Manchester United's current transfer policy when he hit out at Pep Guardiola and Manchester City during his time at Old Trafford
Manchester United’s transfer strategy wouldn’t sit well with Jose Mourinho, judging by previous comments from the former Old Trafford boss. It’s clear for all to see that Ruben Amorim’s squad needs a major overhaul following a desperate season, which culminated in the Europa League final defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.
United have already landed Matheus Cunha from Wolves, while talks are ongoing with Brentford about signing Bryan Mbeumo. Despite a savage round of cost-cutting off the pitch, United could spend big on it, having also been linked with Sporting CP striker Victor Gyokeres and Aston Villa keeper Emi Martinez, among numerous other players.
United are looking to repair the damage done by a succession of expensive mistakes in the transfer market, with Amorim happy to move on the likes of Jadon Sancho, Antony, Rasmus Hojlund, Joshua Zirkzee and Andre Onana if possible and replace them with new blood.
It’s an approach not dissimilar to the one employed by Pep Guardiola at Manchester City while Mourinho was in charge of United. Mourinho took a shot at Guardiola after City spent more than £200million on defenders in the summer of 2017 as part of a wider spending spree at the Etihad.
United spent big too that summer, almost £150m, but Mourinho insisted they couldn’t compete with City’s perceived ability to replace one expensive signing with another. He told United's website at the time: "You think the club can put here now £600million and let's buy six players of £100m? The club cannot do that.
"I cannot expect the club to do that, so it's not critical and you can see how the market is, especially with the top teams. But, you know, without taking any credit away from Manchester City and Pep and his staff and the players, they obviously have lots of credit in what they are doing.
“But Pep arrives, he has the goalkeeper of England (Joe Hart), he doesn't like him so he buys the goalkeeper of Barcelona (Claudio Bravo), he doesn't like him so he buys another one (Ederson). Now he likes.
"He has [Pablo] Zabaleta and [Aleksandar] Kolarov - two very good players but more than 30 years old. He wants to replace, he doesn't replace with two, he replaces with three.
"One from Tottenham (Kyle Walker), one from Monaco (Benjamin Mendy) and one from Real Madrid (Danilo) as an example. Can we buy six or seven players at the same time? Can we invest £600-700m? No. So, it's difficult.
"I think the last years, the market is going in such a direction or you belong to one of these clubs where there is no limit and you just buy what you want and there is no limit, there is no financial fair play, there is nothing, you do what you want - or it's hard."
Now, clubs are bound by financial restrictions, which means expensive signings are generally coupled with sales. That is sure to be the case at United this summer. Still, it’s unlikely Mourinho, whose win ratio was only marginally lower than Sir Alex Ferguson’s when he was sacked in December 2018, would approve of United’s current transfer strategy.