Jose Mourinho has played down previous transfer talk surrounding Jack Grealish’s proposed move to Tottenham Hotspur.
Grealish is expected to line up against Spurs tomorrow afternoon when he captains Villa against Mourinho’s side.
The midfielder was the subject of intense transfer speculation over a switch to North London in the summer of 2018 when he was the subject of a £25million offer from Spurs only for the move to be blocked by Aston Villa’s new owners (Sky Sports).
Prior to the takeover, Villa found themselves in a financial predicament under former owner Dr Tony Xia, with HMRC issuing the at-the-time Championship outfit with a winding-up orde due to an unpaid tax bill.
Grealish admitted that he was disappointed that the move failed to materialise and claimed that he was still affected by the collapsed transfer at the beginning of last season.
Mourinho has distanced himself from the transfer by insisting that it all happened before his time at Tottenham and instead preferred to praise his qualities as a player.
He told Football.London: “I don’t know that [about Spurs’ attempts to sign him]. He’s a player that I’m worried about him in relation to Sunday’s match. He’s a very important player in the Villa dynamic and he’s a player we cannot ignore and say ‘let’s go to Villa Park and ignore that there is a guy there called Jack Grealish’,”
“No, he’s a guy that we have to prepare the match and to understand the influence he has in that team. So very important player, that’s the only thing I can say. The market is closed, what happened or didn’t happen in the past I don’t know.”
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