It is not good for the Premier League but I must admit to feeling a bit of pleasure when Chelsea crashed out of the Champions League at the hands of French champions PSG this week. I wonder what the Arsenal boss felt after all the bad blood between him and Jose Mourinho.
Unfortunately it looks like Arsenal will soon be joining them, but Chelsea’s poor performance has also taken a bit of the media heat and pressure off our own failure. Mourinho and his players are helping the Gunners in other ways as well.
Remember how much pressure and criticism was aimed at Wenger and Arsenal in recent years? It got to the point when they were pulling out their favourite phrase ‘trophy drought’ at any chance they got, like in a post match interview when we played well and won.
There were numerous pieces written about the club and the manager, not many of them with anything positive to say. The FA cup helped of course, but Mourinho, his team’s cheating ways and his constant moaning have now taken the spotlight off us and firmly on to them.
Carragher, Souness and to lesser extent Thierry Henry absolutely savaged them on Tuesday and the football media in general carried it on. It seems that the mask has slipped and the media are fed up of his antics again. Even the officials are getting in on the act and not giving decisions they would have got last season.
As well as hurting Chelsea’s image, all this makes us look like angels because we don’t complain and surround refs and all the rest of the gamesmanship that Mourinho and his players come up with. Maybe it is no coincidence that things seem to be going our way a bit more these days. Keep it up Jose!