By Nelson Dafe on January 2, 2018

Two top Premier League managers, Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger and Manchester United’s Jose Mourinho, have had enough of the criticisms coming to their respective clubs by former and well respected great players of the clubs.

First it was Wenger who took a swipe at Arsenal legend Thiery Henry after the Sky Sports analyst suggested that there was disunity in the Arsenal team.

After Arsenal attacker Alexis Sanchez scored against Crystal Palace in an away Premier League fixture for the Gunners, he seemed to gesture to teammate Alexandre Lacazzette about some of his other teammates not joining in the celebration of the goal.

A number of pundits seized on this and claimed that all wasn’t well between the players and that there must be some ill feelings against Sanchez being held by some players.

One of such pundits is Henry, who made a phenomenal rise in the game under Wenger and won lots of individual and club honours with Arsene’s Arsenal. He had said after Chilean attacker Sanchez scored that: “There is a division in the team. He is asking them to come and celebrate. ‘Why are you not coming? Don’t you want to celebrate?’

“I noticed it. Sanchez made me notice it. It was like he thought he was alone.”

After Arsenal’s late draw away against West Brom on New Year’s Eve, Wenger responded to Henry’s comments by insinuating that the Arsenal legend makes unintelligent comments. Wenger said: “We focus on our own problems, that’s the only thing.

“There are people who are paid to talk, it’s difficult sometimes when you are paid to talk, to talk, to talk and only say things that are true and intelligent.”

If Wenger’s comments about a retired great player of his club was surprisingly harsh, Mourinho’s put down of a very well respected Scholes was way more astonishing in its harshness.

Scholes has been critical of his former team’s boring style of play this season, as well as the club’s record signing Paul Pogba and has not had kind words for Mourinho’s tactical approach to games. Responding however to the pundit after Man Utd put in their finest performance in a long while in a second half blitz away against Everton in a match they won 2-0, Mourinho said: “I think the only thing Paul Scholes does is to criticise. I don’t think he comments, I think he criticises, which is a different thing, but not everyone of us has to be phenomenal, like he was as a player.

“He was a phenomenal player, that doesn’t mean that we all have to be phenomenal. Paul (Pogba) tries to do his best all the time. Sometimes he plays very well, sometimes he plays well, and sometimes he does not play so well.

“It is not Paul’s fault that he made much more money than Paul Scholes. It is not Paul Pogba’s fault, it’s just the way football is.

“But I think Scholes will be in the history like a phenomenal player, not as a pundit. So I prefer to look at him as a phenomenal player who gave so much to the club I am proud to represent and every day I try to do my best.

“If Paul one day decides to be a manager, I wish that he can be 25 per cent as successful as myself, because 50 per cent is 12 and a half silverware, 25 per cent is around six. If he is 25 per cent, he will be quite happy.

“In my mind, Paul Scholes a phenomenal player, one of the best players I have ever seen playing in midfield and he gives so much to my club, I only can thank him for that, because the prestige of this club is based on people like him, so successful here.”

•Photo shows Wenger and Mourinho.

Source Daily Sports

Posted January 2, 2018

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