Arsene Wenger: Jose Mourinho’s criticism disrespectful and embarrassing

Arsene Wenger is far from impressed by Jose Mourinho’s comments (Picture: Getty Images)

Arsene Wenger moved a step closer to ending Arsenal’s eight-year trophy drought and then claimed the moral high ground in his spat with Jose Mourinho.


The Chelsea boss this week described Wenger as a ‘specialist in failure’. However, after seeing his team gain revenge for last week’s 5-1 thrashing at Anfield, Wenger responded to the Portuguese’s broadside with a withering assessment of his own.

‘I do not want to go into that silly, disrespectful remark,’ he said.
‘I never spoke about him in my press conference and I will not start. The only thing I know is it’s more embarrassing for Chelsea than for me.’

Mourinho’s attack on Wenger was earlier described as despicable by Arsenal legend Bob Wilson, who also labelled the former Real Madrid boss a bully-boy.
Wenger also had to field questions about Olivier Giroud’s personal life but the striker’s inexperienced replacement Yaya Sanogo put in a solid shift in his absence.

The 21-year-old’s 16th-minute blocked effort was finished off by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who then crossed for Lukas Podolski’s crucial 47th-minute goal.

Jose Mourinho has been his usual blunt self this week

Steven Gerrard converted a penalty 12 minutes later after Podolski tripped Suarez but a further trip on the Uruguayan, this time by man of the match Oxlade-Chamberlain, went unpunished by referee Howard Webb.

’Luis has a touch, gets around him and it looks a blatant penalty,’ said Reds boss Brendan Rodgers of the decision.
Rodgers, though, took solace from the fact that his team can focus on their title push.

‘It narrows our focus now into one competition and we just continue with the confidence and the belief we’ve been playing with. We’re going to have a really exciting 12 games to finish.’