Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has expressed his frustration with the transfer dealings of the club in the seasons before his arrival.
Speaking to Gary Lineker in a teased segment of the BBC's Premier League Show that will air at 10pm on Thursday night, Mourinho claimed that the club bought players he would never buy, and sold players that he never would have sold.
Jose then listed three players in particular that he would never have allowed to leave the club, in Angel Di Maria, Javier Hernandez, and Danny Welbeck.
Manchester United sold players that I would never sell, and bought players that I would never buy.
I would never have sold Di Maria, Chicharito, Danny Welbeck, never, no chance.
It's an interesting statement from Mourinho, not only because some of those players that he would never buy are still at the club, but also because of the circumstances surrounding the sales of the players he would have liked to now have at the club.
Angel Di Maria's departure was down to his inability to settle in Manchester, which escalated after his family were badly spooked by a home invasion, as well as differences with Louis Van Gaal's system. It would have been interesting to see how things may have played out with Di Maria playing for his old Madrid boss.
The decisions to allow Hernandez and Welbeck to leave were upsetting to many fans at the time, but would Marcus Rashford have been given the chance to show what he was capable of had they been at the club last season? Almost certainly not, and having seen Welbeck's woeful injury record at Arsenal, if you asked fans of the club which local lad they would rather have at the club now you'd have to imagine most would opt for Rashford.
Chicharito was a particularly painful one as he clearly didn't want to leave the club, but Van Gaal's coldness in bluntly telling him that he wouldn't be afforded opportunities at the club pushed him out the door, and he has become a hero in Germany with Leverkusen. He certainly would have been a handy player to have with the team badly struggling for goals last season.
