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Colossal fees show some clubs are desperate - Spurs boss

Soccer Football - Inter Milan v Tottenham Hotspur - Pre Season Friendly - Ullevaal Stadion, Oslo, Norway - 5/8/16 Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino before the match Action Images via Reuters / Adam Holt Livepic

By Tony Jimenez

LONDON (Reuters) - Some Premier League clubs have shown how desperate they are to improve by spending colossal sums of money in the close season on new players, according to Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino.

After this week's signings of Paul Pogba and John Stones, Manchester United and Manchester City's summer expenditure accounts for almost half of the total outlay by top-flight teams, according to a recent study by Spreadex.com.

United paid a world record 89 million pounds ($115.30 million) to bring France midfielder Pogba in from Juventus on Tuesday while City bought England defender Stones from Everton for 47.5 million pounds the same day.

"When you spend a lot of money it is because you are not happy with your squad or your players and you are desperate to improve your squad," said Pochettino on Thursday.

"I am very happy with my players. I think it is very difficult to find better players than we have," the Argentine added as he prepared for Tottenham's opening league fixture of the campaign at Everton on Saturday.

Spurs were title contenders for most of last season until a late form slump meant they had to settle for third spot behind champions Leicester City and bitter north London rivals Arsenal.

Pochettino has been relatively quiet in the transfer market since, buying midfielder Victor Wanyama and forward Vincent Janssen for a combined 28 million pounds.

"We are open to adding one or two players or maybe no one," said the Spurs manager. "But if we have the possibility to sign a player that can improve us, we are very open (to it)."

($1 = 0.7719 pounds)

(Editing by Toby Davis)

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