Roma manager, Jose Mourinho has taken a swipe at Chelsea’s €100 million (£88.5 million) signing for Mykhailo Mudryk.
Arsenal’s attempt to sign Mudryk was thwarted when the Blues reached a deal with Shakhtar Donetsk to pay £62 million upfront and an additional £26.5 million in add-ons.
Under new co-owner Todd Boehly, Chelsea has now spent around £400 million.
After using Marash Kumbulla as cover for the suspended Roger Ibanez during their 2-0 win over Fiorentina, Mourinho said: “We need to find a solution, we can’t just buy Mudryk for €100m!”
“I worked at clubs with those sorts of practically limitless funds. There are more and more clubs nowadays that fit that profile, but it’s not our profile. We work, we give our all, we work with the characteristics we’ve got.”
Mourinho managed Chelsea across two spells, working under former owner Roman Abramovich, who was quick to pay huge transfer fees for players.
Meanwhile, Shakhtar Donetsk president Rinat Akhmetov has pledged to donate £22m to the Ukrainian war effort following the transfer of Mykhailo Mudryk to Chelsea.
The Premier League side signed Mudryk from Shakhtar on Sunday in a deal worth up to £89m, a transfer record for Ukrainian football.
Akhmetov said the money would help a project named ‘Heart of Azovstal,’ aimed at “helping Mariupol defenders and the families of fallen soldiers”.
Mudryk is Chelsea’s fifth signing of the January transfer window following the arrival of Joao Felix on a loan deal from Atletico Madrid, plus the permanent signings of Benoit Badiashile, David Datro Fofana and Andrey Santos.
