Mourinho ready to sacrifice one transfer target over costs

Britain Football Soccer - Wigan Athletic v Manchester United - Pre Season Friendly - DW Stadium - 16/7/16 Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho Action Images via Reuters

Jose Mourinho has warned that Manchester United will not pay over the odds for new players and is prepared to sacrifice one of his transfer targets this summer.

United have already spent more than £100million (Sh13.5b) on Romelu Lukaku and Victor Lindelof, but are haggling with Inter Milan over £48m (Sh6.4b)-rated Ivan Perisic.

Mourinho also wants a defensive midfielder with Tottenham's Eric Dier, Nemanja Matic of Chelsea and Roma's Radja Nanggolan on his list of targets.

But he is refusing to be held to ransom and is ready to accept signing a total of three rather than four players before the transfer window closes. "Everybody knows because I said that I would like four players and I'm ready to go from four to three because the market is difficult," said Mourinho.

"Some clubs think the market is different from others. We are not a club that is ready to pay what the clubs want us to pay, so I'm ready to go from four to three."

"The problem is we have four players (Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marcos Rojo, Luke Shaw and Ashley Young), that cannot play football now. Not even training.

"So it looks like our group is big, but it is not and the time for their recovery is really long. Marcos no chance before December as an example, so our squad is not so big."

Tottenham midfielder Eric Dier is also a target.