Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho says his team just doesn’t have the budget to compete with Manchester City. Despite the massive war chests handed to him in the summer transfer windows, Mourinho said it’s still “not enough” to be on par with City, who “buy full-backs at striker prices.”
Pep Guardiola has spent £361.1 million on new players during his tenure at City, including £120.8m on three full-backs this past summer. With United dropping two more points today at home versus Burnley, they have fallen 12 points behind City, who also have a game in hand on the Red Devils.
Mourinho maintained that he does not have an actual football team that is commensurate with the “big club” reputation of Old Trafford.
“I know what is a big club,” he said in his postgame news conference. “One thing is a big club and another thing is a big football team. They are different things. When you say a club like Manchester United, do you think Milan is not as big as us? You think they are not as big as we are?”
“Do you think Real Madrid are not as big as we are? You think Inter Milan is not as big as we are? There are many big clubs. So when you speak about responsibilities to win the Premier League, Tottenham does not have that responsibility?”
“Tottenham is not a club with the same history as us, Arsenal doesn’t have the responsibility to win it, Chelsea doesn’t have the responsibility to win it?”
“We are in the second year of trying to rebuild a football team you know is not one of the best teams in the world.”
“Manchester City buy the full-backs for the price of the strikers, so when you speak about big football clubs, you are speaking about the history of the club.”
The question was then posed to Mourinho, isn’t £300 million enough to build a title winning team? (The Guardian quotes the figure at £261 million while ESPN FC places it at £286 million)
“It is not enough, is not enough,” the Portugese responded.
“And the price for the big clubs, the price for the big clubs is different from the other clubs, so the big, historical clubs are normally punished in the market for that history. So the boys are doing what they can and they are doing fine.”
It’s pretty obvious that United have been big spenders, they just haven’t spent wisely.
Also, it’s worth noting that the 42 points they acquired at the halfway point of the season would be good enough to earn them top of the table in nine of the previous 25 seasons. It’s only because City are on such a historical run that they find themselves so far out of first.
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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