Mind Games
Even before the football season gets officially underway, the mind games have begun as Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, seeks to sow the seeds of discontent in the dressing room of one of his main rivals, Manchester United.
Now Mourinho is careful to couch his criticism in terms of how such a signing would have impacted on his own club, Chelsea, but his barbed comment about 'stability in the dressing room' must equally apply to Man United players.
So even before a ball has been kicked, Mourinho has stolen a march on his opponents.
José Mourinho: ‘Signing Luke Shaw would have killed Chelsea’
Portuguese criticises 19-year-old left-back’s wage demands
Shaw joined Manchester United for an initial £27m
By Guardian staff
Luke Shaw, right, moved to Manchester United this summer having also interested Chelsea's José Mourinho. Photograph: Matthew Peters/Man Utd via Getty
The Chelsea manager, José Mourinho, has said Luke Shaw’s excessive wage demands put him off signing the 19-year-old left-back from Southampton.
Mourinho was interested in Shaw – whose family are Chelsea supporters – but he eventually signed for Manchester United in a deal worth an initial £27m with a reported weekly wage of £130,000 a week. Chelsea ended up signing the Brazilian Filipe Luís from Atlético Madrid instead and after Mourinho made a pre-season jibe at Arsenal last week over his signing of Cesc Fábregas, it was Louis van Gaal’s side this time who were the subject of his attention.
“If we pay to a 19-year-old boy what we were being asked for, to sign Luke Shaw, we are dead,” he said. “We would have killed our stability with financial fair play and killed the stability in our dressing room.
“Because when you pay that much to a 19-year-old kid – a good player, fantastic player – but when you pay that amount of money, the next day, we would have had players knocking on our door.
“They would have been saying, ‘How is it possible I play 200 games for this club, won this and that, yet a 19-year-old comes here and gets more money than I get?’
“It would’ve killed immediately our balance and we couldn’t allow that. I don’t criticise another club for paying it. They can pay what they want. I don’t have any comment about it. But for my club we can say it would be very negative for us, especially when we can say Felipe is much less expensive. Sometimes you have to make decisions.”
