London: Antonio Conte has taken a swipe at former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho by questioning why he overlooked Victor Moses for three seasons during his second spell in charge.
Moses is quickly becoming the surprise success story of the season after being converted into a wing-back by head coach Conte as part of his switch to a 3-4-3 formation.
Since Moses came into the side, Chelsea have won six successive Premier League games without conceding a goal and have raced to the top of the table.
Chelsea signed Moses for pounds 9 million (Dh40.9 million) from Wigan Athletic in 2012 and he made 43 appearances in his first season at the club under Roberto Di Matteo and interim manager Rafael Benitez. But the Nigeria international was sidelined when Mourinho returned in 2013, and did not make another competitive appearance during the three seasons the Portuguese was there.
Mourinho loaned Moses to Liverpool, Stoke City and West Ham United before Conte took over this summer and took a shine to the 25-year-old on Chelsea’s preseason tour to America.
“I could see his potential from the first days of the summer training camp,” said Conte. “Moses has important qualities: technique, physical strength, the ability to cover 70 metres of the pitch. I find it incredible that someone like him has been underestimated.”
Mourinho, meanwhile, has had another dig at Arsene Wenger and said he was convinced Manchester United’s owners would give him time to rebuild at Old Trafford. The United manager said Wenger had “failed to build a team to be champion” for more than a decade but claimed that his Arsenal counterpart escaped the level of scrutiny he was under.
Yet Mourinho believes United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and the Glazer family, who own the club, will provide him with the “stability” required to restore success at Old Trafford, even though they have sacked two managers in the past three seasons.
“The Arsenal manager hasn’t won a championship in 14 years [sic — Wenger’s last league title was in 2004],” Mourinho told ESPN Brazil. “I haven’t won a championship in 18 months. I’ve been here for four months. And the demand is only for me and not for others.”
Asked why he believed the focus was only on him, Mourinho echoed his claims before United’s draw against Arsenal on Saturday that he had become a victim of his own success. But he is adamant that United’s power brokers buy into what he is trying to achieve.
“It must be because of the career I’ve made, because I got to the clubs and always won right away,” Mourinho said of the scrutiny he was under. “And this [Manchester United] is a more difficult reality, because it is an extremely difficult competition, with teams being prepared for a lot longer, with excellent players, with excellent coaches.
“Manchester really live in a period that needs stability. A stability that the club gives me, a stability that the fans give me, but that the press does not accept very well.”
— The Telegraph Group Ltd 2016
