Arsène Wenger has escalated his feud with Jose Mourinho by telling the Chelsea manager that he has embarrassed both himself and Chelsea with a “silly, disrespectful” attack on his managerial record.
Mourinho described Wenger as a “specialist in failure” on Friday but Wenger, Arsenal’s most successful ever manager, responded with force on Sunday.
Wenger also stressed that he did not specifically mention Mourinho when he claimed that a “fear to fail” was why so many managers were saying they were not contenders to win the Premier League title. “I do not want to go into those silly, disrespectful remarks,” said Wenger, “I never spoke about him in my press conference and I will not start now. The only thing I know is it is more embarrassing for Chelsea than for me.
“I am embarrassed for him. Honestly. I am more disappointed for Chelsea than for me. I am not interested in the subject at all. If you are interested, and you have nothing better to do in your life, you are free to do it. I love football. What is interesting for me is what happens on the pitch.”
Asked for his final word on Mourinho’s comments, Wenger said: “There is no final word on that, unfortunately.” Wenger is certainly right about that, with Mourinho blaming the Arsenal manager for their latest spat following Chelsea’s 2-0 defeat against Manchester City on Saturday. “I don’t accept that one is always ‘Monsieur polite’ and the other one is always the bad guy,” said Mourinho. “I don’t accept, I’m sorry. The only thing I feel was that I was very quiet in my place and somebody spoke not in a nice way about us.
Written by Steve Milne
