Mourinho: We saved £100m with early moves

Jose Mourinho believes Manchester United are around £100million better off for wrapping up moves for Romelu Lukaku and Nemanja Matic before Neymar’s world-record move to Paris St Germain changed the landscape forever.

There was a fair bit of handwringing from Premier League rivals when United agreed to bring Paul Pogba back from Juventus in the most expensive transfer of all-time.

Just a year on, the deal worth up to 110million euros (£93.25million) pales into insignificance compared to the 222million euros (£200.6million) forked out by free-spending PSG to secure Barcelona’s Brazilian star Neymar.

Senior figures at United had long spoken about their expectation of the summer transfer market being crazy and Mourinho praised executive vicechairman Ed Woodward for making key additions before it fully took grip.

“I think we were very clever,” Mourinho told The Times. “We thought that something could happen that could change the market forever.

“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 £150 million. Matic would have been £60 million or £70 million. 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. People look to the £200 million figure now.”

United were able to snaffle Everton striker Romelu Lukaku for an initial £75m and Chelsea’s Nemanja Matic for £35m.

Victor Lindelof has yet to make the same impact since arriving from Benfica for an up-front payment of £30.75m, but Mourinho has faith he will make an impact soon.