Solskjaer aims thinly-veiled dig at Chelsea, City in Klopp response

Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has taken a little dig at the spending power and ownership of Premier League rivals Manchester City and Chelsea.

The Red Devils have spent £114m on the two deals to bring Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane to Old Trafford this summer with rumours they could still bring in a midfielder if the deal is right.

Elswhere City have splashed £100m on Jack Grealish and there are rumours Harry Kane could also join from Tottenham, while Chelsea have spent £97.5m on Romelu Lukaku.

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Liverpool, meanwhile, have only spent £36m on Ibrahima Konate and Jurgen Klopp recently admitted he was confused how other clubs like Man Utd “do it”.

Klopp told reporters: “February 2020 the pandemic started, nobody knew how long it would last, I was hoping of course that it would be over in a month. Now we know so much more about it and it’s still a difficult time. It was for football clubs as well, for different reasons.

“I’m not surprised (that other teams have spent big), because these clubs don’t depend on this kind of thing, I think. We all know the situations at Chelsea, City, PSG. What’s happening at United, I don’t know – I don’t know how they do it.

“We have our way and it’s always been the same since I joined. We can spend, we’re allowed to spend the money we earn – that’s what we always did.

“This year we spent before we earned money with Ibrahim Konate, because after last year it became clear that we couldn’t take any risks in this position at all. That’s our situation.”

And Man Utd boss Solskjaer jokingly said he would only be “buying electric cars” from now on in an effort not to back the petrol and gas-fuelled spending of Man City and Chelsea.

Solskjaer said: “We are a well run club. We do have a lot of fans out there and we do have good sponsorship deals.

“How we get the money, as a manager you want more and more. I have heard ‘no’ a few times.

“How other clubs run their clubs, there are different models at different clubs. I have started buying electric cars! That is all I want to say about that situation.”