Mourinho preparing for a changed transfer market due to pandemic

Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho expects the transfer market will look a lot different due to the financial impact of COVID-19.

Premier League clubs have already returned to non contact training and look set to resume contact sessions in the next few days.

Mourinho told The Football Show on Sky Sports that his players are even more eager to return after watching the Bundesliga, which resumed on the May 16th.

Most clubs have suffered huge financial losses during the pandemic and with the season set to finish later than usual, it will make for a different looking transfer market.

Mourinho said: "To be honest in this moment it is the last thing we are thinking. In the club we are not thinking about it.

"No talks about it, because in this moment we think about safety, following every rule inside of the training ground, we are trying to be perfect, not just in the testing but in everything in the club, we are trying to be perfect.

"But you ask me, and I'm not going to run away. I think it is normal that you are going to have a different market.

"I don't see the world, and especially the football world, ready for some crazy numbers that we are used to having, and some crazy investments that sometimes some clubs and some leagues are used to doing.

"But my first question after that is: 'When will the transfer window be?' Because I don't think it will be July-August anymore, it will obviously have to go further than that.

"If you ask me what I want in my club, I would like my club to be what I know it is going to be: sensible, balanced, not going to spend rivers of money, and we are trying to respect the situation, not just of football but of the world and society overall."

It is a view shared by former Republic of Ireland manager Martin O'Neill, who like Mourinho believes that something will have to give once clubs start to assess the financial impact of the pandemic.

Mourinho was also happy to welcome his players back to training after watching the Bundesliga get back underway.

He said: "Honestly, since the moment Bundesliga started, the Portuguese league and Spanish league announced a date to start, I think it is the most difficult moment for us, because we want to play.

"It is hard to see other countries playing football and we don't do it.

"I always loved, and always tried to make my players love the Christmas period, where instead of being sad, we were always happy to give people what people love. In this moment we are feeling a bit of the opposite.

"German professionals are giving the world something that they love, and we are not, and we want to play, but of course we are respectful of the authorities and we trust them and the Premier League.

"We just have to wait for the decision; when they tell us the moment to start, we want very much to do it.

"Obviously it was an amazing feeling for everybody to be back on the green carpet, because I think we all miss even the smell of it!

"There was a period where we were starting training and 9am and finishing at 5pm, because by having players train individually, we had to have different slots.

"Some people were coming at 10am, 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm."

Mourinho also revealed he was living with his Tottenham staff near the training ground in Enfield and he says it increased productivity.

"It was a decision that we made, to stay all together. By staying together we could easily communicate, not breaking rules, you know that I had the episode with Tanguy (Ndombele), but with my assistants we were living in the same house.

"We could work, we could analyse, we could prepare for the Zoom. Coming to the club mid-season, it was also important because now we have lots of time to analyse all of our matches."

Tottenham were eighth in the Premier League when the top-flight was suspended but Mourinho will be able to call upon Harry Kane and Son Heung Min if the league resumes in June.

A fifth place finish may be enough to secure Champions League football next season if Manchester City's two-year European ban is upheld.

Spurs are four points behind fifth-placed Manchester United and were due to face United in mid-March just days before the league was postponed.