10 contradictory statements and moments from Jose Mourinho

#6 You can’t talk about opposing players – unless you’re Mourinho

Mourinho accused Jurgen Klopp of being unethical

For a man who offers so many controversial views on opposing players and managers, it’s surprising that Mourinho simply can’t take an opponent doing the same in the opposite direction. Case in point, when he paid a world-record fee of £89m to bring Paul Pogba back to Manchester United from Juventus. Many other managers were alarmed by the fee, including Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger and Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp.

And so Mourinho went on the offensive.

“I only speak about us”, he said, “and I already heard two of my colleagues from other clubs speaking about us. I do not like that. It is not ethical”. This was a hilarious statement for so many reasons, particularly when you consider he’d labeled Wenger a “specialist in failure” in the past. But had he ever spoken out about big-money transfers before? Well, yes.

Specifically, the transfer of Luke Shaw from Southampton to Manchester United prior to Mourinho’s arrival there, back in 2014 when he was still Chelsea boss. In classic Mourinho fashion, he’d defended his club for not signing Shaw, stating

“If we pay to a 19-year old boy what we were being asked for, to sign Luke Shaw, we are dead – we would’ve killed our stability with financial fair play and killed the stability in the dressing room”.