Others' failure is not an excuse for United: Mourinho

London, August 19: Jose Mourinho does not think that the relatively settled status of his Manchester United squad gives them an advantage over their title rivals at this stage of the new season.

While he expects little business to be conducted at Old Trafford during the remainder of the transfer window, questions remain at several other top Premier League clubs, where key players have been linked with moves away and transfer targets are yet to arrive, reports the Independent.

Mourinho, however, does not believe that the current 'problems' of United's rivals will affect them in the long-term and does not think such problems can be used as an excuse should a top club fail to mount a title challenge.

"If they have problems the problems are going to finish in a couple of weeks," he said. "They have very good teams, very good players and I don't see any reason for them not to be fighting for the title.

"When people say for example that Chelsea lost an important midfield player, if you lose one but you buy [Tiemoue] Bakayoko and [Leicester City midfielder Danny] Drinkwater for example, what's the problem? The problem is when you sell and you don't buy, but when sell and you keep buying what's the problem? You're probably even stronger.

Mourinho added: "Every top team in the Premier League is potentially strong enough, with the financial situation, to be fighting for everything. And when everybody's also in Europe, five in the Champions League and two in the Europa League, you have the top seven teams fighting for everything. All of them are strong."