Jose Mourinho takes swipe at Arsene Wenger and Jurgen Klopp - 'Arsenal and Liverpool not big enough to sign a Paul Pogba'
Jose Mourinho has told Arsene Wenger and Jurgen Klopp they will never understand Manchester United’s £89 million world record signing of Paul Pogba – because Arsenal and Liverpool are not big enough clubs to pull off such deals.
Wenger and Klopp had criticised United’s willingness to spend such an exorbitant sum on one player, prompting Mourinho to hit back last week by describing their eagerness to talk about his business as “unethical”.
And now the United manager has launched a fresh attack on the Arsenal and Liverpool managers by scoffing at their criticism of a “problem” their clubs could only dream of.
Speaking to United’s official website, MUTV, about United’s capture of the France midfielder from Juventus, Mourinho took the opportunity to take another swipe at his rivals.
The most expensive football transfers of all time
Play!
00:36
“I like everything,” Mourinho said. “I know the discussion, I understand that, sometimes in football, things happen and the club breaks the record, but this is only possible at clubs like Man United.
“When I heard some of the comments and heard some of the managers criticising that, I don’t think they ever have this problem because, to have this problem, you need to be at one of the top clubs in the world. So at Man United it can happen.
“But he’s a very young player, an unbelievable midfield player with such physicality but, at the same time, such agility, co-ordination, skill. He has everything. What he has to learn now is how to play with us because I always say that in football you can be a super player, like he is, but a team is a team and you need to learn how to play in the team, and the team needs to learn how to play with you.”
Mourinho insisted he would do everything in his power to protect Pogba from the critics if required in an echo of the support Sir Alex Ferguson used to give United players.
“We need to get the best out of him and this will be a process,” Mourinho said. “So if he needs protection, I am here to protect. I know some people think that he arrives here now and, the first time he touches the ball, he scores, but I’m here to protect him and give him the best conditions to be what we think he is going to be, which is a football player for Man United, a reference for this club. I’m so happy.”
When asked if Pogba was pleased to be back at the club he left four years ago, Mourinho said: “I can feel that when I speak with him for the first time. I’m feeling now when I see him at the training ground with people he knows since he was a kid. He doesn’t look like a star.
“He looks like a kid who is back to his old school and is finding people that he cares about and people that love him a lot. So I believe that, after a couple of days, he will feel like he never left the club. So I think at adaptation level, he’s not a new player – he’s just a kid back home again.”