Jose Mourinho hails Manchester United’s ‘clever’ business

Jose Mourinho believes Manchester United are around £100m (€109.4m) 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 hand-wringing 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 €110m pales into insignificance compared to the €222m 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 vice-chairman Ed Woodward for making key additions before it fully took grip.