The seemingly never-ending feud between Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger, which started when the Portuguese moved to England from Porto in 2004, has taken yet another turn. In Mourinho’s biographical book, titled ‘Jose Mourinho up close and personal’, which has been written by Rob Beasley, it has been revealed that the current Manchester United manager went to the extent of saying that he would want to meet Wenger ‘outside the pitch and break his face’.
According to the author of the book, Beasley, Mourinho made the aforementioned remarks after Wenger had questioned Juan Mata’s £37 million move to Manchester United in the 2013-14 winter transfer window. The Arsenal manager was not happy that a player of the stature of Mata was sold to a rival after Chelsea had played both the league matches against them.
“Yes I am, because they sell a great player to a direct opponent”, Wenger said after he was quizzed if he is surprised by the move. Mourinho, who is not the one to sit back and let his rivals do all the talking came back with a gem of a reply calling Wenger ‘a specialist in failure’.
"He's a specialist in failure," Mourinho said. "If I do that in Chelsea, eight years (without a silverware), I leave (London) and don't come back", he added.
According to Beasley, Mourinho did not let go of what the Frenchman had said even after taunting the Frenchman in front of the world and told him, “I will find him [Wenger] one day outside a football pitch and I will break his face.”
Though Mourinho did not go to the extent of breaking Wenger’s face, his club, Chelsea, after a few weeks did almost a similar thing, as they trounced their London neighbour 6-0 at the Bridge. Chelsea went on to win the title that season, but the following season was not what the Portuguese would have hoped for as he left Chelsea by mutual consent after a horrific start to the next (title-defending) season.
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Mourinho now finds him at Manchester United, who themselves are going through a not-so-good run after losing three back-to-back matches, the first of which was against Manchester City, where the 53-year-old was defeated by his other nemesis, Pep Guardiola. Though that run ended when United won their EFL Cup tie against Northampton, Mourinho still has a long way to go to prove himself at the biggest Premier League club.
For people who are just concerned about when the two (Mourinho and Wenger) will face each other, the date is 19 November and the venue is Old Trafford.
