Jose Mourinho and Ed Woodward disagreed over the proposal (Picture: Getty)

Manchester United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward defied the wishes of Jose Mourinho by voting against shutting the summer transfer window before the start of the season.

Mourinho voiced his support for the early closure of the transfer window last month but it’s understood Woodward was in favour of keeping the current system, with the results of the vote being revealed this week.

From next season, the window will close on the Thursday before the 2018/19 campaign gets underway, just as Mourinho wished, but United’s hierarchy reportedly voted the other way.

The Telegraph claim 14 of the 20 clubs in the Premier League backed the proposal to beat off competition from United of Manchester City.

United signed Romelu Lukaku and Nemanja Matic this summer (Picture: Getty)

Despite the change placing English sides at a disadvantage to teams in Europe’s other major leagues, Mourinho showed his support for the proposal when pressed last month.

He said: ‘I had a meeting with a representative of the Premier League and gave my opinion but in the end the clubs are going to vote.

‘I think obviously the democratic way, the decision will be the decision that the majority of the clubs will support and vote.

‘Of course I will meet with Mr Woodward because I know that he will want to share my opinion so I think very soon we are going to have a decision.

‘My opinion is we have to adapt to the situation, it doesn’t matter what. But as a football manager and not a market man – just a football man, just as somebody who wants to work with the team, work with the players – I would prefer the window to close as soon as possible.

Jose Mourinho spoke in favour of the change last month (Picture: Getty)

‘So everybody knows the players we have and the deals will be done earlier and nobody would be waiting for the last week and we wouldn’t have the situation of sometimes a player plays game number one for a team and game number two for another team.

‘And the question marks somebody puts – if other leagues don’t close at the same time, are we in danger of losing players in the last couple of weeks? My question is how many clubs in the world are powerful enough to buy the best players in the Premier League and the answer, I think, is very obvious.

‘So the risk is minimal and even those powerful clubs have to know if we can’t buy after, let’s say 14th or 15th of August more or less, if we can’t buy players we’re not going to sell.

‘If they are interested in players from the Premier League they also have to do it before the limit. So again, I repeat, I’m not a market man but as a football manager I would like it to close before the first match.’

MORE : Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp provides Philippe Coutinho update after failed Barcelona transfer