MOURINHO MANUFACTURING WARS OF WORDS

Well, he's at it again, isn't he? Jose Mourinho has stirred the Premier League media pot furthermore through his latest engagement with Arsene Wenger. Responding to Wenger's claims that the league title race was "Chelsea's to lose", Mourinho has hit back with a rather acerbic assault on the Arsenal manager's achievements in the past eight years. Trophyless in that time, the Portuguese has branded his rival a "specialist in failure".

Do not for a second think that this is some kind of an outburst that lacks calculation. This is Jose going back to what Jose does best and that's rattling his opponents through the notebooks and dictaphones of journalists. He has done this time after time throughout his career, whether facing down Alex Ferguson's Manchester United in his initial spell at Chelsea, or Pep Guardiola's Barcelona during his time at both Inter Milan and Real Madrid.

Wenger is not, of course, the first victim of Mourinho's mind games this season. His recent spat with Manchester City's Manuel Pellegrini is also well documented with both men exhanging swipes over their respective clubs' transfer policies. Though Pellegrini made a fine point of how Chelsea have consistently spent since Roman Abramovich's takeover, Mourinho side-stepped that jab by illustrating very clearly that City's net spending over the past twelve months is considerably higher than that of the west Londoners.

Even when he feigns sympathy or support for another club via media comments, Mourinho has an agenda. Last season, he praised Manchester United after eliminating them from the Champions League - saying the better team had lost. At that point in time, he might have been expecting a job offer from Old Trafford with his tenure at the Bernabeu obviously coming to an end. Even this season, he has repeated that Manchester United are a threat, initially refusing to rule them out of the title race and just last week claiming that they will still make it into the top four to secure that lucrative European spot. Why he should build up a rival team that are struggling makes sense. They're not in the title race and it's easier to fight a two-front war than taking on all challengers at once.

So this weekend we have a repeat of last week's Manchester City vs Chelsea match but in the form of an FA Cup tie. It should be interesting to see whether Mourinho approaches it with a carbon copy tactical setup of the three defensive minded midfielders that stifled a Fernandinho-less City. The Brazilian is still on the injury list but one feels Pellegrini might be a tad naive if he opts to field Martin Demichelis as midfield anchor man again. Regardless of who progresses in the evermore meaningless cup, there should be plenty of more fuel for the media fire.

D. Ray Morton, 14th February 2014.