talkingOfArsenal.com

This weekend just gone, asked whether he thought he might one day end up being at Chelsea, Mourinho reportedly ended his answer with the following quote:

"It seems to be different for Chelsea than other clubs. Chelsea have not won (a trophy) for one and a half years, Arsenal have not won the title for five years," he said.

"It looks like everything is good at Arsenal, but at Chelsea everything is in bits. Maybe Chelsea has a different, winning character.

"Some managers have a big excuse when they go to a big club. They say 'I need a lot of time to do it'. If you say this, you get protection.

"If you don't win the title in the first season, or second season, you can keep saying 'I need time'. Sometimes you stay for four or five years, keep not winning, and then keep demanding more time.

"I could never be like this. I live for the risk. I believe you can do it in the first season, and if you do not, you fail. I prefer it like this. I prefer the pressure because that's how I live."

In the two years that Mourinho managed Chelsea, there were various times when he commented on Arsenal and Wenger, during which I believed his statements to be grossly wide of the mark, and most times to be just downright untrue.

The one possibility to explain his behaviour that I could just about live with, was that at the extreme, he was trying to play mind-games to gain competitive advantage over Arsenal - which although unpalatable, would be fair do's.

This quote, however, is quite different.

He is not managing a premiership team, we are not (currently anyway) matched against his club in the champions league, and there is no obvious reason for this diatribe - which can only mean that he truly meant what he said above.

How idiotic is that?

What has Wenger said or done that has warranted this unprovoked dig at the Arsenal manager?

It seems to me that Mourinho is literally comparing apples and oranges, and doing so without care to contemplate the differences - the only similarities between Arsenal and Chelsea are that sadly we share the same city, and share the same league.

Wenger took over Arsenal at a time when we were certainly not considered to be a "big club", nor were we a global brand - through Wenger's hard work along with the current board, Arsenal are where we are today. No wonder that Wenger is afforded the time and patience by both board and fans alike - we appreciate what he has done for the club, and with our committment to balancing the books, also understand that few world class managers would be prepared to stay for the long term given the financial restrictions that growing a club like Arsenal brings with it.

Chelsea on the other hand, would be absolutely nowhere without Abramovich, and without all the resourcing and financing that their benefactor made available to Mourinho, one very seriously doubts whether the so called 'Special One' could have shown himself to be so special in what is the worlds toughest football league. Indeed, at what appeared to be the first sign of any kind of restriction on buying the players that he wanted, Mourinho left Chelsea - that to my mind is more of a sign of weakness than it is one of strength.

Chelsea and Arsenal cannot even begin to be compared - we have completely different principles, totally different cultures, and very different means to achieving our respective long term goals.

Perhaps a little more time spent understanding what Arsenal are about, would have gone a long way to dissuading him from making such silly remarks.

What was that quote about Wenger being a voyeur?

It seems to me that it is Mourinho who can't stop thinking about and worse, talking about Arsenal, perhaps he needs to take a leaf out of his own book.

Those comments would have been barely acceptable were we in the same league, never mind the same country - given those set of circumstances the remarks are just utterly wrong, pure and simple.

What a wally.