Old enemy turns
No way, Jose, it’s on you
JOSE MOURINHO was guilty of attempting to rewrite history as he defended himself for offloading Player of the Year Mohamed Salah while he was at Chelsea.
The Manchester United boss was correct in saying he had been sacked when Salah was sold to Roma in 2016. But the previous summer, following a loan spell at Fiorentina, Mourinho had made it clear the Egyptian was not in his plans.
He said at the time: “I see his future elsewhere. Either on loan or sold with an offer we are happy to accept. We have five wingers and it is better not to have Salah back.”
Yesterday, however, Mourinho tried to focus on the fact he deserved credit for bringing Salah to the Premier League.
“I told the club to buy that fantastic young player,” he said. “After that you know he was not playing a lot and obviously that is my responsibility.
“We decided with him that it was better to have a loan period to play, to grow up, to get stronger and we thought Italian football could be good for him.
“After that I am not responsible for the process.
“He is a fantastic boy and he knows I have a great care for him. He is having an absolutely fantastic season.” REPORTS ARSENE WENGER has begged finally to be allowed one last peaceful trip to Old Trafford – although he admits Manchester United clashes are not what they used to be.
Yes, this is Wenger, the “specialist in failure” and “voyeur” against “out of order, disconnected and disrespectful” Jose Mourinho.
“When you give success to stupid people it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent,” Wenger once said of his rival tomorrow. That tends to stick.
But ahead of this last trip to the Theatre of Dreams he asked for a bit of perspective.
“Will I be friends with Jose? It depends,” he says with a grin. “I respect him a lot of course. You should give me a little bit of peace for my final weeks, don’t push me into a final confrontation. I want to go peaceful and Mourinho as well, he’s a great manager.”
Of course it was a different matter with Sir Alex Ferguson.
The pair are friends now, mutual respect overwhelming the spats of the past.
Virtually from the moment he set foot in England, Wenger’s biannual clashes with the United manager became the ‘must-watch’ battles of the Premier League.
For almost a decade they vied for top spot – during a nine-year period starting just before Wenger took over, the only names scratched on the oversized trophy were that of Manchester United and Arsenal. And then it stopped.
Arsenal’s ability to challenge for titles all but disappeared after the Invincible season of 2003-04. United, by contrast, were reinvented by Ferguson – a regeneration Wenger was never able to achieve at the Emirates.
United spent three more years finishing top of the pile between 2007 and 2009 and it is only now, during this time of retrospection, that Wenger can appreciate what a feat that was.
“United is a massive club with fantastic players,” he said.
“When I go back I realise just what a great side they were. They had Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney together as young players. Ruud van Nistelrooy.
“Then you see what they have done later and that shows the challenge. They had an
TOMORROW marks possibly the last time Arsene Wenger will pit his wits against Manchester United to end a rivalry which has exploded regularly since the Frenchman’s early days in the Premier League. Sadly, despite a long-running feud, the battles with Jose Mourinho have not reached the levels of these infamous Wenger v Sir Alex Ferguson encounters. Yet…
unbelievable team. I realise that better at a distance than at the time.” That second wind in Manchester coincided with Arsenal’s move to a new stadium and the financial constraints that came with it. “We had to change our philosophy when we moved,” said Wenger. “But maybe in the short term it did