Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho delivered a brutal response to Arsene Wenger’s title taunt yesterday by describing the Arsenal manager as “a specialist in failure”.
Hours earlier Wenger had declared that the title is Chelsea’s to lose and insisted anyone who claims their team are not in the race does so out of fear of failure.
Mourinho has repeatedly played down Chelsea’s chances of winning the Premier League this season, labelling his side third favourites behind Manchester City and the Gunners, despite being leaders with 12 games remaining.
“He is a specialist in failure. I’m not,” snapped Mourinho, whose side play City in the FA Cup fifth round today.
“If supposedly he is right and I’m afraid to fail, it’s because I haven’t failed many times.
“Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m not used to failing.
“The reality is he is a specialist. Eight years without a piece of silverware, that’s failure.
“If I do that at Chelsea, eight years, I leave London and I don’t come back.”
During his first spell, Mourinho described Wenger as a “voyeur” for repeatedly commenting on Chelsea. It is a choice of words the Portuguese regrets, but he was riled by Wenger’s most recent comments.
“He loves to look at this football club,” Mourinho added. “I thought between 2007 and 2013 was enough time for him to forget this. But it looks like he always likes to look at us.
“He is saying we’re not candidates because we’re afraid of failure. But failure of what?
“If we don’t win a title in one year, is that a failure?
“Or if we don’t win a title in two years, is that a failure?
“I have lots of respect for him and I think he is a great manager.
“But when he speaks about failure… failure is not winning a title in seven or eight years. That’s failure.”
