by Nia Griffiths

Jose Mourinho has seemingly managed to simultaneously have a dig at and compliment Arsenal all in the same breath – in other news, water is wet.

The Chelsea boss rarely passes up the opportunity to have a swipe at his rivals, not necessarily out of any genuine hostility but because it gives the press their headlines and he’s under some illusion that making jibes at fellow managers falls into the category of ‘mind games‘.

Speaking recently, the Portuguese manager, who, for some reason, was talking about Arsenal’s spending, said, “If you add up the amounts clubs have spent in the last three or four years I think maybe you will find a surprise. If you put Özil plus Alexis Sánchez, plus Chambers, plus Debuchy, you will find a surprise.” 

He interjected bizarrely, “It’s a fantastic squad with good players, fantastic goalkeeper, they are more than ready to be a title contenders.”

Before returning to his previous gripe, “Get a calculator. That is the easiest thing, it leaves no space for speculation. If you want to be honest, objective and pragmatic it is the easiest job for a manager to do.”

Indeed, if you add up our most expensive players from the last couple of seasons, when we’ve had money available since we’ve now completed paying for a new stadium (I feel I should start putting that in bold capital letters), we have spent a lot of money. However, this was money from a combination of revenue, sponsorship deals and commercial income. Money we were and still are entitled to spend. We’re spending to strengthen out team within our means, not ‘buying the title‘. We’re not spending resources we haven’t earned.

Perhaps Mourinho is still annoyed that we bought Petr Cech.

Reading boss, Steve Clarke said recently, “For me, Cech is without any doubt at all still one of the best goalkeepers in the world. He is a great signing for Arsenal.

“I do smile a bit when I see Jose’s comments because I know inside it will be killing him having to sell one of his best players to a title rival.”