Mourinho : "Transfer spend is not enough"

[LonelyFire]

This isn't about Mourinho vs. Guardiola - this is about one club who had a plan and prepared for their manager well in advance of him arriving. Utd on the other hand did not and instead made knee jerk decisions at the behest of the then man in charge.

Take the managers out of it. The current gap is indicative of the way the clubs have been run for the last few years.

 

[AshRK]

But this manager has never stayed anywhere and has never built a squad. So why stick with a manager who is known for short term success if he is not bringing short term success.

That shows how the club lacks direction. First give a job to hut who has no clue how to manage a top club, then hire a possession based drunk who think his football is eciting and then hire a manager who is the best of the lot but is not that great in saving a sinking ship. Jose has been far from perfect but sacking him would be a disaster to say the least.

 

[Pyroblazer]

Yeah, sell all the sqaud players but then replace them with what transfer budget He has had enough transfer budget for 7 incoming players, I'm not sure how he can buy any more players by getting a few quid for selling Blind, Fellaini and others.

Fact is we are 2nd biggest spender (way behind biggest spender) since last 5 years and right now weare 2nd in the league (way behind biggest spender). Is that a coincident?

Our spending isn't really that much behind City. We also were 6th last year and let's see how long we stay in 2nd because the gap to 6th is much smaller than the gap to 1st and our performances don't fill me with confidence. You also can't ignore the gap between teams and the quality of football we play and just say we are 2nd and it's fine because we spend second most.

 

[shamans]

Excuses. Not enough to deal with the big boys? Okay maybe but it sure as hell is enough to beat Leicester City.

 

[shamans]

No it isn’t. Not when the team directly above you has spent more, despite having a much better team in the first place. This seems to be continuously ignored.

We lost to a team below us.

 

[AshRK]

Excuses. Poor show from Mou, undermines the players he has.

Better than overrating them. If only he was more ruthless from the start and not treat fellaini like Zidane.

 

[Number1]

There's a saying "a bad workman always blames his tools".

Jose needs to take a look in the mirror.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

Morata wasn't available?

Real wanted 30m more for him from us than they sold him to Chelsea.

 

[Bojan11]

We lost to a team below us.

We lost? When?

 

[Janson]

I would be saying the same thing if I was Mourinho. The goal is to compete with City, and if we want to do that, we need to be able to match them in the transfermarket. Any other season, minus City oil money, we're fighting for the league title with Chelsea right now. And you can't deny how much progress we've made and how much of an impact Mourinhos signings have made.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Bottom line, ain't it?

Give the manager, whoever he is, time. That's my stance and has been ever since Fergie retired. Let him build a team according to his standards and methods.

No problem. Patience is my middle name compared to certain posters on here.

But the moment you even suggestively use “lack of funds” as an excuse for not challenging properly, not playing cohesive attacking football, not having a squad versatile or big enough to compensate for central players being injured – well, that's when I call bollocks.

The Glazers have done a lot of things. Depending on who you ask, they've done a lot of bad things too (essentially stopped funding what was more of a “family club” prior to the takeover) – but they certainly haven't been stingy with the transfer budget as such post Fergie. Nobody can claim that. There are posters on here who seem to peddle the idea that we simply can't compete with City anymore, because they've spent X millions more than we have on players – and feckknowswhat on full backs, not least – making the task essentially impossible even for the person still hailed (by those posters) as the greatest manager in the world.

The greatest manager in the world doesn't need to outspend his rivals. The actual greatest manager in the world did not outspend his rivals when push came to shove.

You don't need money to organize an attack. You need extreme amounts of money to “build” a side capable of beating anyone if you don't know how to drill attacking moves – that's the plain truth of the matter.

Agree with this.

 

[Kapardin]

We’ve just spent better over the last 3 years, and it’s expensive to catch up. He can moan about fullbacks but you have a £30m left back who can’t even get a game. Walker for £50m as an end product is what you spend £30m on for potential to become. I don’t see the difference.

City spend loads but so do United, and I find it laughable THAT is his latest excuse. Great manager, but embarrassing at times.

Nah, its' perfectly fair. As someone else said, you had a better squad than us and still spent more. We needed a midfielder and striker badly, which were key positions and hence the bulk of the spend went on 2 players alone.

And now, you are apparently going for Van Dijk, with Alexis lined up next summer. Pep is a kid in a candy shop for sure.

Secondly, it is well accepted that our recruitment has been poor prior to Jose due to the past 2 managers being utterly incompetent. So Shaw not being up to scratch is no surprise.

 

[liamp]

We quite desperately need a DOF. Doesn’t appear like Woodward can do that role. Mourinho even at his best performance was never staying long either. Daft we don’t have someone looking after the long term vision of the playing staff.

That's never been Woodward's role to play. Woodward is essentially a managing director.

At this stage, I find it hard to believe Mourinho would go for a DoF to be hired above him. I imagine the biggest appeal of this job to him was the complete control of a club of this size that is afforded to him. I doubt you'll see a DoF here until Mourinho leaves, and even then I think our board is far too stubborn to go for that.

 

[Bastian]

He's not wrong. A big club but not a big team. We've gone over this a thousand times over the last few weeks. He inherited a squad with too many flaws to fix with the financial backing he's had so far. We've got too many players who do not fit or aren't good enough on too high wages making them difficult to shift. We also lack a clear direction from the club, outside of the manager, DoR and all that.

Been waiting for him to say something like this. Quite relieved he's put the truth into words there.

 

[Feed Me]

Given his highly mixed transfer record at United, it’s extremely worrying that he’s angling for an even bigger wedge.

At this juncture, I don’t think he’s had one absolute standout success.

 

[whatwha]

He has himself to blame. He should have provided Woody with alternatives when it became clear that Inter wanted to rob us for Perisic.
He should have spent his money better than wasting £90m on Lukaku, up to £40m on Lindelöf who isn't really an improvement over what we had, and Mkhi.

 

[shamans]

We lost? When?

Sorry I meant we drew. Point still stand. We drew with two teams below us. The money is enough to beat these teams.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

Given his highly mixed transfer record at United, it’s extremely worrying that he’s angling for an even bigger wedge.

At this juncture, I don’t think he’s had one absolute standout success.

Matic and Pogba would qualify as successes given where our midfield was before them.

 

[haram]

The amount he has spent is not enough. Look at City. We can say look at how much Pep has spent, but the fact is players like de bruyne, sterling and otamendi were bought just the year before. City were already up there. Moyes and van gaal had destroyed us in comparison.

 

[liamp]

Given his highly mixed transfer record at United, it’s extremely worrying that he’s angling for an even bigger wedge.

At this juncture, I don’t think he’s had one absolute standout success.

I would argue Bailly, but his injury problems probably throws that into question.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

Funnily enough this wasn't an issue for him at Chelsea when he won the league and it wasn't an issue for Conte last season either. City and us were outspending Chelsea all the while.

I think Ed is going to have a chat with Jose soon and ask him to explain himself.

 

[Red_toad]

Jose is trying to compete with a Manager who spent 123 million last summer and near 223 million the one before, and inherited several world class players when he arrived. So he's a good 80 odd million behind and had a lesser base to start from.Jose is going to have to be very creative.

 

[Bojan11]

Sorry I meant we drew. Point still stand. We drew with two teams below us. The money is enough to beat these teams.

Yes two games where our players should have finished better. Burnley had 3 shots yet scored 2. We just not ruthless enough in front of goal and I believe that is down to personal.

 

[whatwha]

Real wanted 30m more for him from us than they sold him to Chelsea.

Nonsense. Chelsea have paid £60m rising to £70m or something. RM wanted £75m from us, so just £5m more.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

We have to stick with Jose though thick and thin. He is trying to rebuild us as we chase City that are in the 7th year of a solid 7 season plan that didn't get interrupted by philosophy upheaval.

 

[Garethw]

But this manager has never stayed anywhere and has never built a squad. So why stick with a manager who is known for short term success if he is not bringing short term success.

This is my worry. Let’s give him another £200-£300 million to spend only for him to feck off in a year to eighteen months time of his own accord any way.

He’s not a manager that is going to build with long term goals in mind.

 

[Feed Me]

Matic and Pogba would qualify as successes given where our midfield was before them.

Matic has been very good overall.

When it comes to Pogba, though, let’s be brutally honest, he’s been a big disappointment relative to the huge outlay involved. Let’s not even get to comparing him against some of his top peers from rival teams.

Mourinho’s transfers to date are worryingly poor and it’s concerning that he’s talking about needing a significant refit to get us playing properly.

 

[nesty]

Its not what he did when he was here, its the fact that he was the wrong hire, which resulted in us buying the wrong players, not making the CL, and losing generally losing momentum as a club, which resulted in more poor knock on decisions of hiring LvG, bringing in yet more players who he wanted, only to be set back yet again. The Mourinho hire should've happened in 2014 but didn't for silly reasons which were later reversed. Changing managers every couple of years is just not good for us because the ensuing starting and stopping of tactics, management, transfers, team ethos etc results in the sort of uninspiring performances we have seen of late.

In other words, succession planning wasn't on the agenda when Fergie was coming towards the end of his career. A complete lack of this has basically set us back years. We could insert many names in front of Moyes and the same things would occur.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

Matic has been very good overall.

When it comes to Pogba, though, let’s be brutally honest, he’s been a big disappointment relative to the huge outlay involved. Let’s not even get to comparing him against some of his top peers from rival teams.

Mourinho’s transfers to date are worryingly poor and it’s concerning that he’s talking about needing a significant refit to get us playing properly.

You can't dismiss the quality of Pogba and he cost us what 15M more than Lukaku? He's our only genuine world class outfield player, getting the best out of him is an entirely different question.

 

[Feed Me]

I would argue Bailly, but his injury problems probably throws that into question.

Bailly has looked like a diamond in the rough. I like him, but he’s nowhere near the finished article and, as you say, his injury problems have stunted progress.

I’m really concerned by Jose - the football is tumescent and his own mood seems to create a crap atmosphere around the club.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

Nonsense. Chelsea have paid £60m rising to £70m or something. RM wanted £75m from us, so just £5m more.

No. They wanted more than that.

 

[Feed Me]

You can't dismiss the quality of Pogba and he cost us what 15M more than Lukaku? He's our only genuine world class outfield player, getting the best out of him is an entirely different question.

I’m not questioning his overall quality or potential. I’m just looking at how he’s performed since arriving and it’s bested by a load of other players in the PL.

 

[sammsky1]

He has got 7 players since he took over whilst pep 13 or 14. There lies the difference. Pep needed to fix the defence whilst Jose had to fix attack and midfield and we all can admit buying attackers costs you more.

The one blame I will give Jose is he has not been ruthless like pep has been. That's why pep and city are 1 and we are 2nd.

You answered that in your first paragraph: how could Mourinho be ruthless when he'd have replace departing players with new ones, but with no extra money? It seems Guadiola had no financial constraints whatsoever, either in transfer fee or wage bill so could be as ruthless as he wanted; hence double no of incomings.

Even as it was, the lack of quality sqaud depth meant he had to priority Europa Cup over league.

In the context of a record breaking free spending Manchester City and the wasteful spending LVG, Mourinho has been handicapped in his transfer dealings. I can't see how anyone can refute that.

 

[C3Pique]

So how much does he need to spend to beat Leicester or Burnley?

He needs to STFU and get this team playing or GTFO. Mkhitaryan started the season on fire and Mourinho is responsible for sustaining that form, not grinding his confidence down before pushing him out of the squad. In fact I'd say alot of his signings have started really well before going South under his instruction. And now he wants more money to buy ready-made players to grind down.

 

[E-mal]

The biggest disaapointment for me is how our young players have declined.
Our attacking play has been outrocious, no cohesion, no plan. Money wont make us paly as a unit, it perhaps will increase the frequency of individual brilliance.

 

[whatwha]

No. They wanted more than that.

Maybe in euros

 

[sammsky1]

Our spending isn't really that much behind City. We also were 6th last year and let's see how long we stay in 2nd because the gap to 6th is much smaller than the gap to 1st and our performances don't fill me with confidence. You also can't ignore the gap between teams and the quality of football we play and just say we are 2nd and it's fine because we spend second most.

all depends how you define 'that much'!
From the numbers I've seen its enormous over past 5 years.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Any other season, minus City oil money, we're fighting for the league title with Chelsea right now.

In an absurdly hypothetical scenario, sure.

We still aren't playing brilliant football, though.

And the only reason we're a country mile behind City isn't “oil money”. That's a ridiculous cop-out.

People are talking as though we're doing wonderfully well – but just happen to be up against an artificially created, oil money fueled hybrid of Barca '09 and the Harlem Globetrotters. It's not the reality of the situation at all.

City aren't the greatest team ever and we aren't doing everything right (but hamstrung by an insurmountable financial disadvantage): The argument is as RAWKish as anything I've seen on here in a long while.

 

[Summit]

My god I like José, but he isn't half coming across as a whiney bitch here! He needs to shut the feck up and do what great managers do, which is get the absolute most out of the players he's got at his disposal. Fergie did it for countless seasons! When it was clear we needed investment during the early stages of the glazer takeover, you never caught Fergie crying did you? Nope, no value in the market then. Also, what message does it send out to the players that the manager is publicly saying they aren't good enough? Just fecking shut and be that great manager you think you are, Jose

 

[kouroux]

This is why I never watch his interviews. Better read them than to listen to his depressing voice finding excuses after excuses, with very little will to admit his shortcomings.