JOSE: I’LL MAKE WENGER’S WEAK

Mourinho insists weakened team will cheer up Gunners

JOSE MOURINHO says arch rival Arsene Wenger will be happy to see him tomorrow – because he will play a weakened team.

Mourinho has never lost to Wenger in 15 competitive games, but will put that record on the line by making significant changes at Arsenal.

The Manchester United boss is prioritising Thursday’s Europa League semi- final tie against Celta Vigo, with the Reds 1-0 up from the away leg.

He is banking on winning the competition as the route back to the Champions League, feeling any hope of a top-four Premier League finish has gone.

And Mourinho is convinced Wenger, whom he branded a “specialist in failure”, will thank him for his team selection, which will boost Arsenal’s slim hopes of snatching fourth spot.

Asked to respond to Wenger’s admission he is ready to make peace, Mourinho said: “He doesn’t need to. He doesn’t need to because there are no problems.

“In the last match at Old Trafford, we shook hands (below) before, after and I remember I still met him in the corridor and we shook hands again. He doesn’t need to make peace.

“When there is peace, we don’t have to have a problem.

“I’m a big boy, in football all my life, I know a problem on the pitch, but the next day it’s not a problem at all. And I think he will be really pleased with me that I’m going to change my team against Arsenal.”

United also travel to Tottenham and Southampton before their final league game of the season, at home to Crystal Palace.

With such a tough run-in, Mourinho is gambling everything on winning the Europa League, but claimed he will send out a team at Arsenal intent on victory.

“We’re going to try,” he said. “We’re not going to Arsenal to say, ‘Beat us’ or, ‘Beat us 5-0 or 6-0’, we’re going there to fight for a result.

“But it’s impossible, I can’t do it in another way. If Celta were playing with their best team, if they were fighting for important things in La Liga, we would go in the same circumstances.

“But I can’t now play with the same team that played here, and repeat that next Thursday.

“So with the players we have to be sensible and show common sense in relation to our situation in the Premier League.

“I think the last match against Swansea was our last chance to fight for the top four, so I’m going to rest players, for sure.”

Mourinho confirmed firstchoice keeper David De Gea will return tomorrow. Sergio Romero played against Celta.

He denied Romero had become his automatic choice for the Europa League, despite having played 10 of United’s 13 ties in the competition.

“I don’t like to say this competition is for that goalkeeper, this competition is for another one,” he said. “Anyone in goal I trust completely.”