Mourinho hoping to end transfer window with ‘better, balanced’ Spurs squad

Tottenham Hotspur manager, Jose Mourinho believes the club will approach the close-season transfer window with a clear sense of direction and resist the temptation to compete with high-spending rivals.

While Premier League clubs will be able to start signing players when the window opens on Monday, British media reported Mourinho would have limited funds to strengthen his Spurs squad.

“We’ll be very calm, organised, measured, thinking of everything,” Mourinho told a news conference on Friday.

“Step by step we’ll end with a better, more balanced squad, and keeping the great players we have is a very important thing.

“But we cannot react to what our opponents can do and what we cannot do. We have no doubts about what we need.”

A win against Crystal Palace in the final game of the season on Sunday may not be enough for seventh-placed Spurs to secure a European League qualification spot.

For Spurs to guarantee a European spot, they must leapfrog Wolves into sixth-place with the hope that they drop points against Chelsea.

If they are to reach Europe’s second-tier competition with a seventh-placed finish, Spurs must again depend on Chelsea to beat Arsenal in the FA Cup final next month.

“We have a couple of possibilities of playing in Europe next season but it’s in the hands of others,” Mourinho added.

“The only thing we can do is beat Palace and add three more points to our tally.”

Mourinho said a new coach who has “a history and connection with the club” will be joining his backroom staff as he confirmed the departure of long-time assistant Ricardo Formosinho.

“Ricardo is leaving because he feels he would like to have one of his last opportunities, probably because of his age, to be a head coach,” Mourinho said.

“I prefer that it’s the club that’s going to inform you about that (the replacement), but I prefer to go in the direction of developing local people,” he said.