Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho questions Jurgen Klopp over Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk signing

Sign up to the Independent's betting newsletter for the latest tips and offers

Sign up to the Independent's betting newsletter

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

Jose Mourinho, the Manchester United manager, has questioned his counterpart Jürgen Klopp after Liverpool broke their transfer record to sign Virgil van Dijk from Southampton.

Van Dijk completed a £75m move to Anfield on Wednesday and became the most expensive defender in history in the process, passing the £52m paid by Manchester City for Benjamin Mendy.

As United prepared to break the world transfer record to sign Paul Pogba for £89.3m in July 2016, Klopp spoke out against exorbitant spending and claimed he would “do it differently” if he had the same resources at his disposal.

Mourinho labelled Klopp’s words unethical at the time and on Friday, ahead of United’s Premier League meeting with Southampton, he suggested that the Liverpool manager should be challenged on his comments on Pogba.

“You know, I think the ones that speak about it in a specific way has to be Jürgen,” he said when asked to comment on Van Dijk’s move. “If I was one of you I would ask him about his comments about one year ago.

“Not speaking specifically about that case [Van Dijk] because in Liverpool they do what they want to do and I am nobody to comment on what they do.

“The reality is that if they think that the player is the right player for them and they really want the player, they pay his amount or they don't have the player because that is the way the market is at that time.”

Three days after claiming United’s level of spending is “not enough” to compete with the likes of Premier League leaders City, Mourinho went on to lament the “crazy” amounts top clubs are forced to spend for their targets in the current market.

“When we compare now the amount of money certain managers and clubs spend – I am not saying 10 years ago, but three years ago – it is to compare the impossible. You cannot compare the realities.

“Virgil van Dijk is the most expensive defender in history of football, was he better than [Paolo] Maldini, [Giuseppe] Bergomi or [Rio] Ferdinand? You cannot say that, is just the way the market is and you pay or you don’t pay.”

The United manager: “If you pay obviously you pay a crazy amount of money but if you don’t you don’t have the player. It is as simple as that, so no critics at all about what Liverpool did, is just the way it is.”