the rival managers were involved in an ugly first-half spat, while
Chelsea were left facing awkward questions themselves in the wake of
this victory over their medical staff's initial assessment of the
severity of a head injury sustained by Thibaut Courtois.
Wenger had been infuriated by Gary Cahill's poor challenge on Alexis
Sánchez on the touchline, a tackle which earned the England
centre-half a caution, and marched out of his own technical area and
across that of his opposite number. Mourinho stood in the Frenchman's
way, ushering him back, with the Arsenal manager pushing him back. The
pair clashed again seconds later with the fourth official, Jonathan
Moss, duly stepping in to separate them and the referee, Martin
Atkinson, subsequently speaking to both.
(Photo: Arsenal Manager, Arsene Wenger (l) and his Chelsea
counterpart, Jose Mourinho in a moment of madness)
There will be no retrospective sanction given the clash was witnessed
at the time but, while the incident merely served to inflame an
already tense occasion, Wenger expressed no regret.
"What is there to regret?" he asked. "I wanted to go from A to B, and
somebody confronted me before B without any sign of welcome. B was
Sánchez, to see how badly he was injured." The Arsenal manager
suggested Cahill's foul was worthy of a red card and, asked what
Mourinho had said to him, added: "Honestly, I don't listen to what he
says. Push him? You would know if I really tried to push [him]. Come
on."
The pair, who share a strained relationship born of regular clashes
since Mourinho arrived in English football in 2004, did not
acknowledge each other on the final whistle, once Chelsea had
reasserted their five-point lead at the top of the table and condemned
Arsenal to a first league loss of the season. "It becomes heated
because it's a big game, big clubs, big rivals, an important match for
both teams," said Mourinho, who has not lost in 12 meetings with
Wenger. "These conditions make a game of emotions. After that,there
are two technical areas. One for me, one for him. He was coming into
my technical area and not for the right reasons, to give some
technical instructions. He was coming to push the referee for a red
card, and I didn't like that.
"But no problem. I think Jonathan Moss did a good job, and Atkinson
too. I've done so many wrong things in football, sometimes due to
emotion, but not this time. This time I was just in my technical area
and it was not my problem. Game over. Story over."
Mourinho was less comfortable discussing the issue surrounding
Courtois, who was floored after sustaining a 10th- minute head injury
when connecting with Alexis Sánchez's right thigh. Two of the home
side's medical staff sprinted on to the pitch to assess the Belgian
and, having examined him for 56 seconds and spoken to the player, were
satisfied the goalkeeper could play on. Yet 13 minutes later he had
sunk to his knee with liquid coming out of his right ear, was
substituted, assessed by a Premier League appointed doctor in the
dressing room and taken to hospital for precautionary tests. It was
later confirmed he had suffered mild concussion and was kept overnight
in hospital for observation.
Chelsea's staff technically followed the new guidelines set out by the
Premier League for this season - Fifa have since stipulated a
three-minute timeout should be taken in such cases to make a more
thorough assessment of a player's state of fitness - with the incident
merely serving to underline how limited the recently adopted measures
are. "He had hospital tests as a precaution," said Mourinho. "But we
think nothing to worry about.
No comments:
Post a Comment