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LONDON. — Never mind Arsene — perhaps it will be tenth time lucky when Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea visit the Emirates Stadium on December 23. Arsenal’s 2-0 Capital One Cup defeat by Chelsea on Tuesday night was the ninth time Wenger has pitted his wits against Mourinho and failed to come out on top.
His record against the Portuguese remains dismal: five losses and four draws. When it comes to Mourinho, Wenger very much remains the ‘voyeur’, the man looking on at his rival’s success.
A League Cup match for which Arsenal made eight changes and Chelsea 10 said little about either side’s chances of winning the Premier League, other than perhaps Arsenal’s relative lack of strength in depth.
But it did, however, reinforce one manager’s dominance over the other.
It is nine meetings now, and Wenger has yet to sip that post-match glass of red wine and savour victory over Mourinho. Their relationship may have thawed from the ice-cold tension of 2005, when Wenger came close to starting legal action against Mourinho after the Chelsea boss labelled him a ‘voyeur’ with a ‘big telescope’, but their head-to-head record still makes unhappy viewing for the Frenchman.
That, both psychologically and in the way both men set up their teams, could be crucial in a season in which the two London clubs currently occupy first and second place in the Premier League.
This is a managerial rivalry that once got very personal, but Wenger’s record against Mourinho looks substantially better when compared with other current Premier League managers. No current top flight boss who has come up against Mourinho-managed sides more than twice has a head-to-head record in his favour. The Chelsea manager comes out on top against them all.
Draw for the quarter finals:
Leicester City v Manchester City
Stoke City v Manchester United
Sunderland or Southampton v Chelsea Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United — Mailonline.
Online Reporter