Jose Mourinho has admitted that he is expecting to complete all his summer business by the first day of the Premier League season on August 14.
The Portuguese is well known for getting his business done early in the transfer window and expects no changes to that with United, who have spent the last 4/5 summer deadline day’s shocking the world with last minute deals.
However, Mourinho wants all his deals done as soon as possible, and after already signing 3 players, he has just one more ‘big singing’ on his wish list.
The 4th and final signing is a fairly obvious guess, Paul Pogba of Juventus. But Mourinho has once again refused to be drawn to mentioning names.
“I don’t like to speak about other players. Other managers like to do that. What matters to me is only what happens in my house, not the house of my neighbour,” said Mourinho.
“Pogba is a Juventus player until officially he isn’t. It stays like this. I think my club is trying to do everything to close our market before August 14. So hopefully by next week we will have our squad closed.”
“That squad includes another new big signing. We have 22 now, and we are going to have 23.”
The manager was quick to jump to the praise of his 3 new signings Bailly, Mkhitaryan and Ibrahimovic.
“We have a young centre-back that needs time to be a top one, but he has top potential and we believe a lot in him. We bought a creative player, we know the quality he has.”
“We bought a super striker and we are going to get a very good midfield player. So I am happy with my squad and the effort the club did and is still doing.”
Mourinho also responded to recent speculation surrounding midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who has reportedly been banished to train with the reserves. Jose has downplayed the situation, saying it is only down to squad size.
“The manager decides his squad and chooses a certain number of players to face the season, and that’s it. I normally like to work with 20 players plus the three goalkeepers, which is what I do for 15 years,” he said.
“But we have so many players, so many competitions, especially the Europa League, which changes the profile of the season a lot. You have the big risk of travelling a lot, playing Premier League. So I made the decision to play with 23 players and two goalkeepers, which is a lot. I had to make my decisions, it’s simple.”
Mourinho admitted United’s pre-season, which included an ill-fated trip to China and a cancelled friendly with rivals City, had been far from ideal preparation for the new season.
“The number of matches was not enough,” he added.
“The match we didn’t play against City wasn’t good for us. The week of no work in China was really bad for us. We need to train, we need to play, we need minutes for the players. We need to train against other teams like we did against Everton and Galatasaray.”
[Quotes via Sky Sports]