Jose Mourinho appears to have taken a sly dig at former club Chelsea's 'limitless' spending and says current employers Roma are simply not able to compete in the transfer market.
The Blues have committed to spending over £400m on players following Todd Boehly's takeover of the club in May, and stole in ahead of neighbourhood rivals Arsenal at the weekend to sign Mykhailo Mudryk from Shakhtar Donestk for a fee approaching £90m.
Mudryk's move to Stamford Bridge includes an initial guaranteed payment of over £60m, with the remainder of the fee to be topped up by performance related add-ons and bonuses.
Mourinho was one of the first managers to enjoy the luxury of splashing the cash at Chelsea, having succeeded Claudio Ranieri in 2004.
Didier Drogba, Arjen Robben, Petr Cech and Ricardo Carvalho were among the players Mourinho signed during his first year in west London, and the spending continued until his hasty departure in 2007.
Now in charge of Serie A side Roma, Mourinho doesn't have the same resources available to him when it comes to spending money, and he cheekily swiped that he has to find alternative ways to bulk out his squad rather than just throwing money at a problem.
“I worked at clubs with those sorts of practically limitless funds,” Mourinho said.
“There are more and more clubs nowadays who fit that profile, but it’s not our profile. We work, we give our all, we work with the characteristics we’ve got.
“We need to find a solution, we can’t just buy Mudryk for €100m!”
Mourinho's Roma have been in decent form in Serie A this season, winning 10 of their 18 games played to date, but still only sit 7th in the table after strong starts from Napoli, Milan, Juventus, Inter, Lazio and Atalanta.
They also have a Europa League play-off tie with Red Bull Salzburg to look forward to, with a place in the last 16 at stake.
