Mourinho revisits old ground with Pep pop

JOSE Mourinho namedropped City midfielder Kalvin Phillips when making a point about spending in a subtle dig at his long-standing dugout rival Pep Guardiola.

The former United manager, who is currently in charge at Roma, has worked on a limited budget with the Italian club. City, meanwhile, are blessed with financial clout.

It has to be said they are not the only Premier League side in that bracket with United and Chelsea spending huge sums in the last few years in particular. However, it was City and Guardiola who Mourinho opted to focus on when speaking about his own transfer dealings.

England regular Phillips joined the treble-winners for £45million from

Leeds United last summer. The move hasn’t gone entirely to plan for the midfielder, despite the 28-year-old winning three medals in his debut season at the Etihad Stadium after leaving his boyhood club.

Speaking about his situation, Mourinho, 60, told beIN Sports: “Look, not that I’m jealous, but Manchester City, for example, paid EUR80million for Phillips.

“Now, in January, Pep said he will send him away and buy another [midfielder].

“We are in a different reality. I would like one, two, three or four players, and [Roma sporting director] Tiago Pinto and the owners would like them too. We all want to try to improve the team to be stronger for the second half of the season, but we have difficulties in trying to do that.”

MICAH Hamilton will remain with the City academy for now despite notching a superb goal for the senior side on Wednesday night.

Hamilton earned his first City start in midweek in the Champions League and scored his first senior goal as he took on two players and fired a shot over the Red Star goalkeeper into the roof of the net.

He later won a penalty and earned plenty of plaudits for a fearless performance.

His rise is all the more remarkable given he has spent much of the last two seasons out injured, telling reporters that 12 months ago he was receiving injections in his ankle before coming back this season to captain the under21s and break into the first team.

The Crumpsall-born youngster has been the subject of calls to get more senior appearances in light of his debut, but Guardiola insists Hamilton’s place is popular scoreline bet is 4-1 to the scousers at 12/1. A sending off at 3/1 looks a decent bet.

The pressure is mounting big time on Erik ten Hag with the morale sapping early exit from the Champions League at the hands of Bayern Munich, who barely broke sweat at Old Trafford.

But for me no moves should happen on this front until the rest of the turmoil at the club is resolved.

City, meanwhile, impressed at Red Star with academy starlets grabbing the headlines...and the Blues are favourites with us at 2/1 to be outright Champions League winners with the Germans at 7/2, Real Madrid 11/2 while Arsenal are at 13/2. The Blues – odds on