Mourinho clears Rooney to face Arsenal despite hard week with England

“I don’t say a word about Chris Smalling”, Mourinho said.

The next chapter in one of the Premier League’s most volatile managerial rivalries will be written this weekend when Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal visit Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United.

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On Shaw, he said: “He worked well in this period where we had a very small group, which is not the best but he worked really well”.

“I think when you see the names of the players at Arsenal, you can say: ‘This team can win the title at the end of the season”.

“Tomorrow is a match between the two managers with the best record in the Premier League.I think six or seven Premier League titles, I’m not sure. I don’t think I get that respect”.

Arguably the lowest blow was Mourinho’s “specialist in failure” jibe during his second stint at Chelsea in 2014. We haven’t won there in the Premier League since 2006 and it’s been a long 10 years.

Yet, Mourinho feels he is targeted for criticism more than Wenger.

The “Special One” claimed that journalists respected his counterpart more than him, despite his recent Premier League record.

The coach also reiterated his commitment to the United project, saying he joined the club to win the EPL title once again. “I have a lot of respect for the career of Wayne Rooney”. “It’s not a game of managers, it’s a game of two clubs, two big teams who want to do well”.

“Today, football has changed and even if it is Manchester United v Arsenal, if the game is not good after 20 minutes they move somewhere else, that is what has changed in the modern game”.

United may not quite be out of the title race this season just yet, but they do find themselves eight points off the lead-a defeat to Arsenal would realistically put them out of contention. Later that year Wenger shoved Mourinho on the touchline, and they had to be held apart by the fourth official. That’s if you’re going off what Mourinho said in his Friday press conference.

“I don’t have any problem with him”.

José Mourinho is rather accustomed when speaking to the media to throwing out random darts at players – including his own – and fellow managers.

There’s no doubt Carrick is an exceptional midfielder who posses the quality to dictate the tempo of any match from the base of midfield while creating goal scoring chances for his teammates to score if played by Jose Mourinho.

Wenger’s only success over Mourinho came in the 2015 Community Shield. If you turn up 25 times and you lose one game, people take that one game as a normality. No.