“My rivalry with Mourinho is real” – Wenger

Arsenal boss, Arsene Wenger, has confessed that he has a “real” rivalry with his Chelsea counterpart, but insisted that he respects the Portuguese.

In an interview with BBC’s World At One, Wenger spoke about his desire to play attractive, attacking football and how Roman Abramovich’s purchase of Chelsea changed the game.

Wenger and Mourinho have maintained a tetchy relationship, since the latter arrived England between 2004 and 2007.

It would be recalled that early last year, the pair pushed each other during a league game at Stamford Bridge.

“The rivalry is real but it has to be respectful and I believe that managers sometimes, in the heat of the game, [the] passion gets out of control,” the Gunners chief said.

“When I’m guilty, I’m guilty, and I regret that always but basically you have to respect each other, because if in our own job we don’t respect each other… the job is difficult enough, and I always find that a guy who doesn’t do that you lose a good opinion.”

The Frenchman also stated that top clubs must do all they can to entertain fans and carry the values of the sport through the generations.

“I believe that our sport has moved forward a lot on the technical side, on the physical side, on the tactical side but as well we must not forget the values that our sport carries through the generations,” he added.

“And one of them is that the vibes coming out of a team, going into the stands, they don’t lie. I always like to think that the guy who wakes up in the morning after a hard week of work, has that moment, that fraction of a second when he opens his eyes, ‘Oh, today I go to watch my team!’ and it makes him happy, he thinks ‘I can see something special today’. We’re not always in a position to guarantee that but we have to try.”

#mourinho #wenger