Manchester: Jose Mourinho claims he is the “privileged one” after he signed a contract extension with Manchester United until 2020, with the option of a further year.
The manager’s previous deal expires in 2019, but the Portuguese has increased his commitment to the club and suggested he could stay at Old Trafford even longer.
Mourinho, 55, has at times cut a disconsolate figure off the pitch this season and continues to live in a hotel and travel to London to see his family, rather than fully commit to life in Manchester.
That has not affected the esteem within which he is held in the United boardroom and Mourinho said the assurance he felt from the owners played a part in his decision to agree fresh terms, as did the chance to work with a talented group of players.
“I feel a privileged one to work with such a fantastic group of boys,” Mourinho said. “That was my initial contract, for three years. Now we made the decision to make it clear for everyone: it’s not for three, it’s for four or five and, who knows, [maybe] more.
“I don’t sign contracts if I am not happy so I am really happy with the trust, with the empathy. I did new contracts with Chelsea after being champion, in Inter after winning the Scudetto, Real Madrid after winning La Liga. Here it’s just a consequence of my work, and we believe in each other, we are happy with each other.
“I think I am doing the things that the owners and the board feel are the right things to do for the -future of the club and they are showing me also their ambition, their commitment, their desire to go in the right direction.”
Mourinho said he was still motivated, hungry for success and relished the challenge of restoring United to the status they enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson.
United won the Europa League and League Cup in the first season after Mourinho succeeded Louis van Gaal in May 2016.
However, they have struggled to compete with rivals Manchester City in the Premier League this season and trail the leaders by 12 points, while at times there has been some disgruntlement among fans with the style of football.
“That’s just the way I am,” Mourinho said of his thirst for management. “I am just turning 55, but I feel myself very young, especially as a manager I feel very young. I want to work 10 or 15 more years because I like to do it and I don’t see myself doing anything else.
“The tradition and history of Manchester United and the ambitions every fan has to go back to that level. “But since day one I felt that the owners felt that, shared that ambition with the fans, the board working hard and I have the clear feeling that they will never stop until they reach what they want to reach, which is to go back to -success.” Meanwhile, Mourinho has accused Pep Guardiola of sour grapes over Alexis Sanchez — except the Portuguese used a metaphor involving oranges instead.
United beat City to the signing of forward Sanchez after they agreed a swap deal with Arsenal in which Henrikh Mkhitaryan moved in the opposite direction.
Guardiola had long admired Sanchez, but said City withdrew from the race to sign the Chile internationalbecause they did not want to break the wage structure at the Etihad Stadium.
Sanchez had only six months left on his deal at Arsenal and signed a four-and-a-half-year contract at Old Trafford, worth more than £300,000 a week which, with image rights and bonuses, rose above 500,000 pounds.
By comparison, the biggest earners at City are on around £220,000 a week, and Guardiola felt offering a significantly higher wage to a new signing could upset the harmony within his squad.
His attempts to take the moral high ground did not wash with Mourinho, though.
“I think Alexis reminds me a little bit of a metaphor — when you see the tree with amazing oranges at the top of the tree and cannot get there,” Mourinho said.
“You say, ‘Oh, I got the lower ones because I don’t like the ones at the top’.
“You like the ones at the top. They are so nice, so orange, so round, so full of juice but you cannot get there so you say, ‘I don’t want to go there’ or ‘I didn’t like it, I prefer the other ones’. It reminds me of that story.” Mourinho went on to justify Sanchez’s earnings on the -basis that, if his contract at Arsenal had not been up at the end of the season, his value would have been astronomical.
“We have to put things in perspective,” Mourinho explained. “How much would Alexis Sanchez cost in a normal transfer, club to club, as a player with two or three years of contract?
“We look to the numbers now and I would say roughly between £100-150 million. So, you put things in perspective: you go to the numbers that the club didn’t pay on the transfer.
“You go to the numbers that the club pays in salaries, which are obviously higher than others, but you put things in perspective. “You get a calculator and you arrive into different conclusions.”
