The world will witness one of the fiercest rivalries in football when Manchester United welcome Arsenal on Saturday. While the two teams have always churned out some fiercely contested matches, the rivalry has grown by leaps and bounds in the last two decades as both the teams have been involved in the fight for domestic supremacy.
Well, the rivalry is all set to go one notch higher because of the explosive history between the managers of the two teams- Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho. The two managers have a track record of fierce encounters since the Portuguese tactician arrived at Stamford Bridge in 2004. The rivalry between the two is so fierce that the Arsenal gaffer got physical with Mourinho in 2014 when he was managing Chelsea.
The on-field rivalry has led to some infamous war of words away from the field.With both of them, all set to renew the rivalry, we recall some of their most famous exchanges:
5. 2005:
When Wenger was asked about his team’s all-foreign lineup, he responded by taking a dig at the Blues.
The French tactician said: “I don’t see especially that Chelsea play more English players than we do. Who have they produced, homegrown? Just one, John Terry.”
The Arsenal boss once again took a dig at his bitter rivals in August 2005 by saying: “I know we live in a world where we have only winners and losers, but once a sport encourages teams who refuse to take the initiative, the sport is in danger.”
Mourinho retaliated by calling his Arsenal counterpart a voyeur.
He said:“Wenger has a real problem with us and I think he is what you call in England a voyeur. He is someone who likes to watch other people. There are some guys who, when they are at home, have a big telescope to see what happens in other families. Wenger must be one of them – it is a sickness. He speaks, speaks, speaks about Chelsea.”
The war of words did not stop there as Wenger shot back by saying: “He’s out of order, disconnected with reality and disrespectful. When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent.”
And as expected, Mourinho did not keep quiet and said: “At Stamford Bridge, we have a file of quotes from Mr. Wenger about Chelsea Football Club in the last 12 months – it is not a file of five pages. It is a file of 120 pages.”