Arsène Wenger has accused José Mourinho of disrespecting his fellow managers. The Arsenal manager did not take kindly to his Chelsea counterpart pulling no punches after their goalless draw last weekend, when Mourinho quipped it was boring to go 10 years without a title.
“I think I just told you that the biggest thing for a manager is to respect other managers. Some people have to improve on that,” Wenger said. Mourinho was responding to chanting from Arsenal’s crowd but Wenger was disappointed the Portuguese felt the need to turn that into a dig at his record.
“Look, everybody lives with his own internal problems and I live with mine. That’s enough,” he said. “You can have incidents with other managers sometimes. It gets a bit heated when you fight directly with them but in the end I believe time heals and the important thing is to respect each other as much as you can.”
Mourinho was asked about Wenger’s comments, in his pre-match media briefing at Cobham, but declined to respond. However, it is understood he was unimpressed Arsenal’s manager did not shake hands with him before or after the teams’ meeting at the Emirates Stadium.
Never the best of friends, the antipathy between the two managers was very much in evidence earlier in the season at Stamford Bridge, where Wenger pushed Mourinho. The Frenchman did not apologise for that.
On the subject of managerial conduct, Wenger empathised with Leicester’s Nigel Pearson, who struggled to control his emotions this week. “I have sympathy, of course. He apologised and he knows he was wrong but it is not always easy to deal with these kinds of situations. We are all human beings,” Wenger said.
He recognises how fine the line is and how close he has come to crossing it. “Many, many, many times,” Wenger added. “You know you have to control yourself and remain polite and respectful. But of course sometimes you feel that people are not respectful of you.”
Wenger’s focus is on Arsenal’s remaining games of the season, starting with a trip to Hull on Monday and ending with the FA Cup final against Aston Villa. The target to finish in the top three, and thus avoid a Champions League pre-qualifier, is paramount. Finishing fourth, and squeezing two early European matches into the Premier League season, brings “huge pressure”, according to Wenger.
“You have to qualify and these kinds of games become more and more difficult. Our challenge is to finish well and take that strength into the next season,” he said.
On a different note, Wenger expressed his backing for Ainsley Maitland-Niles, the Arsenal youngster whose mother was involved in some altercations at the club’s training ground recently. “It is basically a private matter. I know Ainsley very well and he has my complete support because he is a good boy and I am sure his mother wants a great future for him and to help him. There are some incidents that I don’t know well and I don’t know why but the boy has a perfect behaviour inside our club.”