Jose Mourinho didn’t want to sign any of the players recruited by Liverpool during his Manchester United tenure, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The newspaper claim the United hierarchy were “disappointed” when Mourinho “reeled off the names” of Liverpool players recruited during his two-and-a-half years at Old Trafford.
The Telegraph report Mourinho “did not go for any of them”, during a period in which the likes of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Virgil van Dijk, Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Andy Robertson, Fabinho, Georginio Wijnaldum and Xherdan Shaqiri were signed by the Merseyside giants.
OPINION
There is so little that made sense about so much of Mourinho’s United tenure. He not only appeared to have totally lost his way as a manager, but his capacity for creating conflict was staggering even by his standards. Quite why he would jealously reel off Liverpool’s signings after he had not tried to sign any of them is baffling. But, much of what Mourinho has said, about his own players, other team’s players, has been strange. Another point is why the United manager was not more interested in signing some of those recruited by Liverpool. Not so much Alisson, as United already had a world-class goalkeeper, or Salah, a player he had frozen out and then sold when at Chelsea. But the likes of Mane, Van Dijk and Robertson would all have been brilliant United signings, while Shaqiri would have been a bargain for them, too. Mourinho’s man-management has spiralled rapidly downhill, while his judgement on players has also gone awry, too.