Leicester City play Manchester United on Saturday and Claudio Ranieri is heading to Old Trafford singing the praises of Jose Mourinho. Describing the United manager as a "fantastic person", the Italian dismissed suggestions there remained any bad blood between the two of them.
Mourinho famously called Ranieri "a loser" when he replaced him as Chelsea manager in 2004 and he also insulted him during his time at Inter Milan when Ranieri was in charge of Juventus. Too old and too weak was the gist of Mourinho's jibes at the time, but he was made to eat those words last season. As Ranieri steered Leicester to their historic Premier League title, Mourinho was looking for work after being fired by Chelsea in December.
Ranieri resisted the temptation to gloat and he refused to be drawn into a war of words ahead of Saturday's league game: "Mourinho is a fantastic manager, intelligent, clever," he told reporters. Any ill-feeling, he continued, was "prehistoric...a long time ago."
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He even mooted the idea of sharing a drink after tomorrow's match. "Maybe he has to offer me a good red wine. I love red wine and if he offers I will go and drink it with him [after Saturday's game]."
Neither Leicester nor Manchester United have found their rhythm six weeks into the new season with the league champions lying 11th and the Red Devils in 7th. While new United signing Paul Pogba has been singled out for criticism, so has veteran Wayne Rooney, with a growing feeling among reporters and spectators that his powers are irreversibly on the wane. Rooney has hit back at his knockers, however, telling MUTV: "I don't really listen to what a lot of people out there are saying, because a lot of it is rubbish."
Though United reversed a three-match losing streak in midweek with victory over Northampton Town in the EFL Cup, Mourinho knows that after back-to-back league defeats to Manchester City and Watford, three points are imperative against Leicester. But his preparation for the game won't have been helped by the headlines in Friday's Daily Mail. In extracts from the new biography of the Special One, the Mail reveals the depth of Mourinho's hatred of Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. The pair have been at each other's throats since the Gunners first played Mourinho's Chelsea in 2004, but in the biography, author Robert Beasley claims Mourinho once said of the Frenchman: "I will find him one day outside a football pitch and I will break his face."
The comments will add a certain piquancy to Arsenal trip to Old Trafford on November 19 for Wenger's first meeting with Mourinho as manager of Manchester United.
If there's any red wine after that match, it will be probably be thrown and not drunk.
