Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho says it will take time to compete with Manchester City

City's spending means United cannot expect 'dramatic improvement', according to Mourinho

Jose Mourinho says Manchester City enjoy an advantage in the market (Getty)

Jose Mourinho has warned Manchester United supporters it will take 'patience, calm and time' before they can expect to compete with rivals Manchester City and that they should not expect a “dramatic improvement” in the club’s fortunes.

After the 2-2 draw with Burnley on Boxing Day, Mourinho claimed United’s level of spending was simply “not enough” to compete with City, who sit 15 points clear of their neighbours and nearest challengers at the top of the Premier League table.

Despite an outlay of approximately £290m since his appointment in the summer of 2016, the United manager still believes the club is operating at a disadvantage when compared to other clubs, like City, who can expend even greater sums.

Mourinho stressed he did not want to take anything away from City for the form that has seen them win 18 consecutive league games and streak ahead at the top of the table, but ahead of his side's Premier League meeting with Southampton on Saturday, he reiterated his complaints about their spending.

“Without taking any credit from Manchester City and Pep and his staff and the players, obviously they have lots of credit in what they are doing but Pep arrived, he had the goalkeeper of England [Joe Hart], he doesn’t like him. He buys the goalkeeper of Barcelona [Claudio Bravo], he doesn’t like him. He buys another one [Ederson], now he likes him.

“He has [Pablo] Zabaleta and [Aleksandr] Kolarov, two very good players but more than 30 years old, he wants to replace. He doesn’t replace with two, he replaces with three. One from Tottenham [Kyle Walker], one from Monaco [Benjamin Mendy], one from Real Madrid [Danilo], as an example.”

Guardiola in fact parted ways with four full backs in the summer - Zabaleta, Kolarov, Gaël Clichy and Bacary Sagna - and he has been forced to play midfielder Fabian Delph in the left back position since £52m signing Mendy suffered a serious knee injury in September.

The City manager arrived in Manchester during the same summer as Mourinho and has spent approximately £395m acquiring new players in the time since - around £100m more than his long-standing rival, but some way short of the “£600-700m” figure bandied around by the United manager on Friday.

Mourinho nevertheless believes that clubs like City and Ligue 1’s Paris Saint-Germain - who broke the world transfer record this summer with their £198m capture of Neymar - hold an advantage in the current transfer market which makes it difficult for other top clubs to compete.

“In the last years, the market is going in such a direction. You [either] belong to one of these clubs where there is no limit and you buy what you want, no Financial Fair Play, there is nothing, you do what you want or it’s hard, it’s hard. I think my boys are doing what they can.”

When asked whether he had enough resources at his disposal to compete with City, Mourinho said it was possible for United to challenge but the work would have to be done over a longer period of time and at a more considered pace given the “profile” of the club.

He had the goalkeeper of England, he doesn’t like him. He buys the goalkeeper of Barcelona, he doesn’t like him. He buys another one, now he likes him.

Jose Mourinho

“Is it possible? Yes, it’s possible,” he said. “Sometimes if you don’t have that profile of club where there are no limits and the only thing that matters is to get the best, even with that there is only one way which is patience and calm and time.

“I think next season we are going to get two or three more players and also lose two or three, if you can try to anticipate you can more or less see it is normal that this is going to happen.

The United manager added: “It’s not going to happen that there is a dramatic change and a dramatic improvement but with time, step by step, with some balance, we have to do it.”

Mourinho also stressed that he feels he is supported by the club’s hierarchy and pointed to the fees paid in recent years for the likes of Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku as evidence, but he also feels as though United are left to play catch-up while other clubs stockpile talent.

“I have the backing of the club,” he said. “We all know we invested a lot, so when you invest as much as we did it wouldn’t be very fair of me to say the club didn’t support, didn’t want to help, doesn’t want to win. It would be very unfair, which is not me. The club invested a lot of money.

“The problem is not the money we invest, the problem is the money the others invest. And it’s the problem that others with better squads, with better stability, with more options, they keep investing and that is the only problem.

“For example, we bought a striker in the summer – a very good striker – but that good striker was to replace Zlatan, it was not him and Zlatan to be in the best of their form from day one. We signed Victor Lindelof, we didn’t have Marcos Rojo, we had problems, so when we are assigning players it’s to replace people.

“If next summer we are going to sign a midfield player it will be to replace Michael Carrick. Michael is a phenomenal player who this season could give us nothing at all. He’s in the end of his career so if next summer we buy a midfield player it’s not to improve our squad, it’s to replace Michael Carrick, so to improve our squad in midfield we would need to buy two.”