It's no secret that José Mourinho and Arsene Wenger aren't exactly the best of buds, but physical violence has never factored into their rivalry. Actually, yes it has, but it was managerial violence - almost like a combative waltz on the sidelines of Stamford Bridge - and nowhere near 'fisticuffs'.
However, the extent of their hatred has now been revealed to be, supposedly, far more sour than even meets the eye during its regular, mundane airings on a positively gleeful Sky Sports News.
We present to you this headline from Friday's Daily Mail:
Friday's Daily Mail back page -
Mourinho: I'll break Wenger's face#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/pJPsskg1ys— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) September 22, 2016
Like yourselves, our first reaction was, 'Ah, he hardly said that? Where's that from'? Well, the answer to the latter question is it's from a new book on Mourinho by journalist Rob Beasley, which is being serialised by Sportsmail.
According to the Mail themselves, Beasley had regular correspondence with the Special One, and they "exchanged many emails and text messages."
In his book, Beasley writes of a message he received from Mourinho in 2014, days after the then-Chelsea manager made his now famous 'specialist in failure' remarks towards the Frenchman.
Beasley writes:
Mourinho had carried out a cold-blooded assassination of his enemy in broad daylight. Inevitably it was too gory for some, who believed Jose's brutal honesty was too vicious and vindictive. Not to him it wasn't.
A few days later he was still pumped up about it all, telling me: 'When Mr Wenger criticises CFC and Man United over the deal with Mata...I will find him one day outside a football pitch and I will break his face.'
Well then.
A couple of weeks later, Mourinho's Chelsea beat Arsenal 6-0, and Arsene Wenger ducked out of his presser, explaining that the team bus was waiting for him. Mourinho apparently said to Beasley:
Next time I lose a game I don't go to the press conference because the team bus is waiting for me.
We wonder what Mourinho will make of these messages being publicised, or if indeed he'll be asked about them at his next press conference. To read a proper excerpt from Beasley's book, head over to the Daily Mail.
