Jose Mourinho has said that the transfer market has just reached a new level of crazy.
According to the United manager, if his team would have gone after Romelu Lukaku on deadline day this summer, he might have cost a whopping £150 million.
Mourinho has said that the transfer fee of Neymar has changed the whole dimension of the transfer market – maybe forever. As per the Portuguese, players would historically go for lesser amounts on the final day of the transfer market.
But this year that whole theory just went for a toss.
While speaking to the Times, Mourinho said, “Normally the last part of the market is less expensive, but this season, after Neymar, everything changed and changed for the worse in terms of prices.”
“I think Lukaku on August 31 would have been £150m. Matic would have been £60m or £70m. Neymar changed everything. If the biggest transfer in history had still been Pogba, I think Philippe Coutinho would now be in Barcelona at £101 million.
“Lukaku and Matic, now, would have cost us £200m in total,” Mourinho added. “But because we did it in the first part of the summer, it was much less.
“I think we did well in financial terms and well in preparation terms, getting them before the season started. That is not crucial but it is important.”
Mourinho also said that his team were clever enough to wrap up most of their business during the early half of the transfer window thus saving themselves from the wrath of the market.
Man Utd signed three players well before the final few weeks and they were perhaps the only top team from England who did not have any sort of major transfer rumour during the final day.
And we can’t do anything but agree with Mourinho on this. The absurd transfer amount that PSG paid for Neymar has just opened the flood gates for future big money moves.
