If you thought 2016 wouldn’t be able to deliver anything else to surprise you, hold on to your arses because Jose Mourinho has managed to mention Arsenal without having a snide dig.

Not back in the Premier League five minutes and the man who was sacked by Chelsea twice was sticking the knife into Wenger but his most recent comments are missing any sense of attack.

Perhaps he was tired.

Speaking to the Portuguese paper, Expresso, for their Saturday edition, Mourinho was asked who he thought his main challengers for the league would be this season.

Bigging up Chelsea, City and Leicester, he added, “Liverpool grow with another great coach. Arsenal, which is the prototype of stability, has the same coach for years and years in a row.”

Look at all those words that have come out of his mouth without any of them being snide.

2016, eh? Just when you thought you’d saw everything.