ARSENE Wenger said yesterday that he preferred to avoid a “destructive mode” as he played down claims that adversary Jose Mourinho had once wanted to “break his face”.
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“I will not give you any name because I believe it would put the guy under big pressure”, Wenger said in a Facebook live session with BT Sport.
And Wenger wants to use Conte’s Chelsea as a measuring stick to see how good his side are at present.
Wenger expressed “surprise” that Chelsea would sell a “great player” to a direct rival.
“What is fantastic is that this has nothing to do with our game tomorrow”. I am more constructive and I comment on that.
“I told him, ‘Here you do that, you know I can’t react, but I will meet you one day in the street'”. Arsene Wenger, frustrated to see his side losing to Chelsea yet again, pushed Mourinho. “And I personally am just focused on doing well in my job and respecting everybody else”.
“I don’t feel I comment a lot on other teams”.
“In the last two games we played with 10 men so for the result tomorrow it’s important the way we play football but also the way we behave”.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says Chelsea striker Diego Costa is even more unsafe this season – after managing to “clean up his act”.
‘Before that period, we were always beating them, after they were always the stronger team for a few years. “By being cold-blooded and respecting the rules of the game”, said Wenger.
“I told Jose they’d actually done a “Chelsea” and copied his game plan from a year ago and his emailed response left me gobsmacked”. You realise that today as well.
Conte, however, says defensive concerns are nothing new at Stamford Bridge and has called on the team as a whole to become more solid.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has warned Arsenal not to rise to the mind games Chelsea have employed in recent years but Conte has dismissed the importance of previous encounters as he prepares for his second London derby of the season.
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“Overall, I felt that technically we played well, all of our combinations worked well and we played at a high pace, and that’s where we made the difference in the game”.
