Jose Mourinho may have lost his first and only game against Manchester United since the club sacked him, but he did land a pretty hard jab against his most recent former club. On one hand, now is not the time for the Portugese to be throwing shade at Old Trafford, given how Tottenham, his current side, are still looking up to them in the standings, albeit on tie-breaker.
On the other hand, the United transfer saga with Sporting CP star Bruno Fernandes has become laughably protracted, and annoyingly tedious. The failure of the two sides to finally get this deal done is easy fodder for criticism.
“How was Lisbon? Lisbon was good? So Bruno Fernandes come to United or no?” Mourinho sarcastically quipped to a reporter tonight after his side’s 2-1 win over Norwich City. “So you go to Lisbon and he’s not coming? But coming or no?”
He then switched topics from one of the major football headline stories in his native Portugal to his side finally getting a badly needed win. It’s clear that more than a year after his dismissal, he’s still plenty bitter.
However, United have yet to sign a single player this January transfer window, at a time when they’re badly in need of reinforcements. Fernandes and United have reportedly agreed to personal terms, but the two sides are still pretty far apart on the transfer fee.
Sporting want €80 million while United are offering €60m, and the player’s agent, Jorge Mendes, has gone public in saying he’s spoken with other teams about his client, and that he’s cool with Fernandes staying put until the end of the season.
“I can’t sit here and do anything but hold my hands up and say that’s not good enough for Manchester United,” said United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer tonight, after his side lost to Burnley at home for the first time since 1962.
“We are working to improve and get players in and hopefully we can get something over the line [before the deadline]. These players are being stretched.”
“They scored from their chances and we didn’t take ours. Lately we’ve played better in these types of games where we’ve dominated, but today we didn’t get the first goal and that took lots of the belief out of us.”
United have lost three of their last four league games while Spurs got their first league win in five tonight. However, you got to give Mourinho and Spurs this- they have signed one more player named Fernandes than United have this winter.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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