Mourinho Defends Pogba & Lukaku Price in Rival Bashing Statement With One More Signing Targeted

Manchester United boss José Mourinho has defended the decision to spend £164m on Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku, whilst also criticising his rivals spending this summer. Mourinho also inadvertently confirmed that Zlatan Ibrahimović will sign a new contract with the club in the new year, according to the Daily Mail.

"We spent big money on a striker because, with strikers, you either spend or you don’t get," Mourinho stated. "We spent because of what happened to Zlatan [Ibrahimović] and we cannot allow ourselves to be without an important, strong striker for the first six months of the season.

"I don’t think it kills football as the big clubs will always have the potential to produce this kind of money and not to be in problems."

The Portuguese manager then went on to speak about Chelsea and Tottenham's activity during the transfer market: "Everybody speaks about the dimension of the investment at Man City, but there is another team where I feel the dimension of their investment is phenomenal - Tottenham.

"For me the dimension of their investment is amazing. They keep everybody they want to keep," Mourinho continued. "They sold Kyle Walker, I think because they wanted to sell. And probably because they think Trippier is as good as Walker. And he’s younger than Walker.

"Chelsea are champions and they buy now. We are halfway through the market and they buy [Antonio] Rüdiger, [Tiemoué] Bakayoko and [Álvaro] Morata," he added. "Every club makes different investments, but all of them are investing a lot to win the title."

Mourinho then went on to talk about any potential new signings coming through the doors at Old Trafford, claiming that Manchester United's executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward control's the clubs transfers.

"I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. Ed [Woodward] is in control. He did Lindelöf and Lukaku," Mourinho stated. "He knows that I would like two more players, but he also knows that I have balance, I understand the situation, I understand the market.

"One player would be a midfield player that would give me more options to my team, more balance. The other would be an attacking player that could play through the wings to give me more attacking options."

Mourinho's decision to break the world record transfer fee last season for Pogba was heavily criticised at the time, however, with the amount of money that is swapping hands this summer, Pogba's £89m fee looks tiny in comparison to Kylian Mbappé's £160m price tag or Neymar's £196m release clause.