Jose Mourinho has made his latest jibe(s) against Arsenal.
Mourinho has come out with two controversial statements about Cesc Fabregas and Jack Wilshere, both of which refer to Arsenal in a rather disparaging manner.
Firstly, Mourinho stated that Cesc Fabregas never wanted to join Arsenal and only wanted to join Chelsea, claiming that Arsenal were merely an “interference”.
He said:
“I spoke with him 20 minutes. I think he really wanted to come to us.
“As you know Arsenal had an option to interfere. But I think he was not open for that, I think he was very much in our direction so it was an easy job for me.”
Then Mourinho had his say on Jack Wilshere, who was pictured smoking in a swimming pool in Las Vegas. Mourinho said:
“What football players do, millions and millions are watching, lots of kids are watching.
“I’m not a specialist obviously but I don’t think if a football player smokes one cigar or cigarette with friends in the summer when he is not training – I don’t think it affects his performance.
“What gets affected is that a kid at home says if a top football player can smoke then I can smoke and it is not a problem.
“It is more a social consequence than a physical consequence.
“Being angry is not a solution but I would just explain exactly that, that everything they do or wear is part of the kids’ life.
“If they smoke, maybe the kids think they do it a lot of times and they will probably do the same.”
Mourinho has quite a history of making disrespectful comments against Arsenal and manager Arsene Wenger; last season he referred to the Frenchman as a “Specialist in Failure”, prompting much debate amongst various supporters. The vast majority of these comments have not been well thought out at all and are designed entirely to make Arsenal fans and Wenger angry, as well as getting himself back on the front pages of the newspapers.
However, Arsene Wenger has mostly responded to these comments with calm and aplomb. For example, when Mourinho claimed that Arsenal always get the easy fixtures, Wenger just pointed to the statistics: in the last five years Arsenal have got the least rest between fixtures of any team in the Premier League. When Mourinho referred to Wenger as a “Specialist in Failure”, Wenger brushed off the comments and said he was not interested in responding to such “silly” attacks.
Let’s go back to Mourinho’s comments about Jack Wilshere being a bad role model for children by smoking a cigarette. I’m sure any of you who took an interest in that story will have found, if you didn’t already know, that players such as Zinedine Zidane, Lionel Messi, Johan Cruyff and Mario Balotelli have all been pictured smoking. Moreover, then Chelsea player Ashley Cole was pictured smoking whilst Jose Mourinho was the manager of the Blues.
I presume that, considering Mourinho has such strong opinions on footballers smoking, he will have disciplined his left-back strongly; nothing about that was revealed in the press, but at no point did Mourinho tell the press that Cole was a bad influence on children, even though Mr Cole, as well as being caught smoking, has been involved in a number of controversies, such as: cheating on his wife three times; swearing at a police officer; being caught speeding; referring to the FA as a certain swear word which I refuse to repeat and shooting a twenty-one year old with a rifle. If Mourinho misses a chance to play something out in the press something must be amiss.
Now, you could say that someone lambasting a player he doesn’t manage for smoking despite the fact that one of his own players has committed the same offence and worse is somewhat hypocritical. However, the more important question is: why does Mourinho feel the need to comment on this? Smoking was a very foolish thing for Wilshere to do: he is an athlete who is under pressure to perform well next season and has a responsibility, as someone in the public eye, to set an example. However, how many times has someone in the public eye done something irresponsible? Considering Jack Wilshere is in no way affiliated with Mourinho, other than the fact they work in the same field, why must Mourinho comment on this one particular event? If he is so disgusted with Wilshere, why hasn’t he felt the need to comment on every single other controversy which has occurred during his time in football? Shouldn’t he feel the need to comment on what his very own captain, John Terry, has been doing?
By not commenting on all of Terry’s and Cole’s actions but singling out Wilshere for smoking, Mourinho is implying that you can racially abuse players, mock Americans over 9/11, commit adultery and shoot students but smoke one cigarette and you are a disgrace to children. There is no question that many footballers have done appalling things over the years, but instead of childishly singling out one player for committing a comparatively minor offence, why not try to address the issue as a whole? I suppose there’s not much point in asking Mourinho to look at things objectively.
As for the Fabregas comments, Mourinho’s claims that Fabregas only wanted to come to Chelsea rather contradict the player in question’s own comments on the matter:
“I do feel that I have unfinished business in the Premier League and now is the right time for me to return. Yes, everyone knows that Arsenal had the first option to sign me. They decided not to take this option and therefore it wasn’t meant to be. I wish them well in the future.”
Fabregas also said:
“Arsenal was first option, but Wenger said he had Ozil at my position. I had 2-3 other options in England, Mourinho won me over.”
And there you have it, conclusive proof that Mourinho was indeed talking provocatively and ignoring the facts. Nothing more needed to say on that matter.
What Mourinho is really saying is: “My ego cannot tolerate the thought that I might be accused of buying someone else’s reject, so I must pretend that Chelsea was always Fabregas’ first choice.”
He might even go on to say: “In fact, because I am the Manager, Chelsea is the first choice of every player in the world and Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar and Gotze telephone me every day to beg me to come to Stamford Bridge”
Why can’t he just say: “Fabregas is a wonderful player and he is going to have a fantastic career at Chelsea”?
Not only does Mourinho lack objectivity, he lacks a touch of class. Football managers are representatives of their clubs: they are businessmen, employed by their clubs to keep their team performing at the level deemed desirable by the club’s owners. If anyone in the business world behaved like Mourinho, he would be laughed at and would struggle to get a job of any note.
There are very few managers in world football who would be as disrespectful towards a rival as Mourinho has been towards Wenger. Sir Alex Ferguson, the most successful manager in English football and a man known for being controversial, never felt the need to insult a fellow professional. No other Chelsea manager has been so disrespectful towards Arsenal: Carlo Ancelotti, whilst Chelsea manager, said that Wenger’s way was “the right way”; Luiz Felipe Scolari offered his support to Arsene Wenger whilst Chelsea manager; former Chelsea manager Avram Grant said that Wenger and Ferguson will always be the top two managers of English football last year.
Perhaps this never ending supply of comments doesn’t represent Mourinho’s genuine views; he just wants to get the attention of the media. If Mourinho does genuinely believe that Jack Wilshere in particular is a bad influence and that Wenger is a “Specialist in Failure” he shows a worrying lack of objectivity; if he’s saying these things to wind everyone up then he’s a rather undesirable man.
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