Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho has expected a dramatic shift in the transfer market until football returns.
“It is normal you are going to have a different market, I don’t see the world – especially the football world – ready for some crazy numbers we used to have,” he told Sky Sports.
After the coronavirus pandemic, the 57-year-old expects big fees for transferring players to be a thing of the past for now:
“I would like my club to be what I know what we will be: sensible, balanced and not going to spend rivers of money. We are trying to respect the situation, not just football but the situation in the world and society overall.
“But it is the last thing we are thinking, we are not thinking about it. There are no talks about it. We think about safety and following every rule.”
In January, Spurs bought Steven Bergwijn from PSV for £27million while also breaking their club record to sign Tanguy Ndombele last summer for a reported £55million.
But Mourinho claims the Premier League will need a new strategy with the coronavirus epidemic affecting the finances of clubs, as leagues around the world will.
Along with the financial aspect, he wonders about the new schedule of the transfer window: “The first questions after that is will be when will the transfer window be? I don’t think it will be in July or August anymore, it has to go further than that.”
The Bundesliga has already resumed and Mourinho wants to follow through playing again, with a visit of Manchester United’s former club their next fixture.
“Since the moment the Bundesliga started, since the Portuguese and Spanish leagues announced a date to restart, that is the most difficult moment for us,” he said. “We want to play, it’s hard to see other countries playing football and we don’t do it. German professionals are giving the world something they love and we are not. But we trust what the authorities and Premier League are doing. When they say it’s the moment to start, we want to do it.”
The Premier League has indeed yet to set a date for a return, but after being postponed in March, top-flight clubs gave the green light to phase two of training as they approached a restart inch forward.
Mourinho’s squad also resumed training after the relevant tests.
