Clever or just plain stupid? How Mourinho is treading on thin ice with his mind games

By Matt Sheppard
Jose Mourinho, one of the greatest managers to grace the football stage. His intelligence and tactical awareness has led to some of the greatest teams of this decade. But one of his key features as a manager is the cheek and confidence to play mind games with his fellow professionals and nine times out of ten he gets the better of them! Ever since he walked through the door to his first ever press conference as a Chelsea manager back in 2004 and branded himself 'the special one' just shows you the amount of self belief that is streaming through this unique and dare I say it 'special' individual. But on Friday afternoon at his most recent press conference he reacted to Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger's comments that he and his Chelsea side had a "fear of failing". Mourinho stated that Wenger was a "specialist in failure", which may have just blown open a brand new feud between these two greats.




Mourinho's comments may have backfired on him and Chelsea Football Club as saying to a fellow great and professional that their a "specialist in failure" is pretty stupid. Yes, Arsene Wenger and his Arsenal side have not won a trophy for eight years now, but that gives Mourinho no exception to come out and state that Wenger is a failure. He has changed the face of the Premier League ever since he arrived back in 1996, he led a title winning team to go a whole season unbeaten and he has brought and developed some of the Premier League's greatest names. So for Mourinho to say that he is a "specialist in failure" is quite embarrassing on his behalf and one Chelsea's behalf. There will be a few awkward faces in the Chelsea hierarchy after those comments as they will know that Mourinho was in the wrong with his comments and they know that it will slightly affect the name of their football club.




Wenger responded to Mourinho's comments after his sides 2-1 FA Cup 5th round victory over Liverpool by saying that Mourinho's comments were 'embarrassing' and 'silly', which in truth they were! Arsene Wenger is a very classy individual who has such a high reputation in the football world and these comments from Mourinho would of hurt him deeply. But Wenger is not that type of person to react and bite back at Mourinho's so called 'mind games' as he has too much class, and is that something that Mourinho lacks?


Mourinho has a great reputation among his fellow professionals, but you can't help but feel that these comments have dented his reputation and has made him come across as a bit of an idiot. One thing that is for sure is that we have not heard the last of this feud. This is just the start.