Jose-Conte battle for silverware

london — Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte renew hostilities with the stakes heightened when Manchester United and Chelsea face off in Saturday’s FA Cup final needing silverware to mask this season’s flaws.

Conte’s need is the greater. Having missed out on Champions League football for next season, many expect the Wembley showpiece to be the Italian’s final match in charge at Stamford Bridge, regardless of the outcome.

If it is, nothing will give Conte more joy than bowing out by winning a cup competition for the first time as a coach by beating the man with whom he has clashed most regularly and bitterly since arriving in England. Conte labelled Mourinho a “little man” and “fake” at the peak of their spat in December.

Days earlier, Mourinho had appeared to allude to a suspension given to Conte for allegedly failing to report match-fixing when coaching at Siena. Conte later won an appeal, clearing him of any wrongdoing in the case.

The root of their feud comes from Conte’s success in his first campaign at Chelsea, just a season after Mourinho’s second spell at Stamford Bridge ended in the Portuguese being sacked having won just four of Chelsea’s first 16 league games, in December 2015.

On his first return as a visiting manager, Mourinho protested at what he perceived as Conte’s “humiliating” celebrations in a 4-0 victory for the Blues over United.

Conte then warned his players at the start of this season not to let their standards slip to the levels of “the last season with Mourinho”.

In hindsight, the Italian was right to warn against complacency as Chelsea have fallen well short of the form they showed in storming to the title last season. —