The admiration between Jose Mourinho and Angel Di Maria is a two-way street as wide as a Texan highway.
Speaking in 2013, Di Maria paid a gushing tribute to his former Real Madrid boss, insisting Mourinho “made me a better player… both technically and tactically” (Goal).
Mourinho, meanwhile, would later claim if he had taken the reins at Manchester United 12 months earlier, there was “no chance” Di Maria would have been sold to Paris Saint-Germain for £44 million.
But all that praise and public protestations of appreciation count for little when you consider Tottenham are operating under one of the strictest and most stringent wage structures in the top level of European football.
Only the chosen few, such as Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, earn more than £100,000 a week.
When you consider Di Maria takes home closer to £250,000 a week at PSG (£13 million a year), the prospect of the 2014 Champions League winner arriving in north London feels less likely than Sol Campbell returning as club ambassador.
And, as L’Equipe claims Di Maria could be on his way back to the Premier League with Tottenham, it’s difficult not to be reminded of what Jose Mourinho said about the Argentina international six years ago when a big-money move to Chelsea was apparently on the cards.
“We couldn’t bring (Radamel) Falcao or Di Maria in because I didn’t want to,” Mourinho said in Jorge Mendes’ biography, via SportsJoe.
“I can’t have a player earning €10 million (a year) when others earn three, four or five. That would have caused an explosion.”
Unless Di Maria is willing to take a substantial pay cut, no one in north London should be getting carried away about a story that should be nipped in the bud.
Even if the rumours are true, the figures involved mean this feels like a non-starter.
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