Jose, Conte on collision course

The insults freely traded beneath the multitude-of-sins covering umbrella of “mind games” only a few weeks ago ceased as Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte prepared for confrontation.

No allegations of match-fixing or the touchline “clowns” nor prickly responses about the “little man” or “senile dementia” nor casual invitations to sort out the differences once and for all in private.

Conte and Mourinho reached an uneasy — and probably temporary — truce ahead of today’s Premier League clash between Manchester United and Chelsea at Old Trafford.

There was no appetite from the executive tiers of either club for another unseemly round of “tit-for-tat” name-calling and so the press briefings of the two managers were called for roughly the same time.

In Manchester, the United manager emphasised his emotional uncoupling from Stamford Bridge, where bonds were strong until Conte turned up and created life after the Special Gone.

“To play against Chelsea will mean less and less and less with the years,” said Mourinho.

“I left a couple of years ago and next season three years ago, so step by step that feeling of I was the Chelsea manager or I was their manager for them I think disappears, so the real meaning of it is that two of the best teams in England, two of the biggest clubs playing one match.”

He was sure to reference his “good” relationship with Chelsea’s board but, on Conte, he said: “I’m not going to speak about it. Very good manager, fantastic team, that’s what’s important.”

The 4-0 victory for Chelsea over United at the Bridge in October 2016 was a watershed as the London crowd serenaded their new leader.

Mourinho complained about Conte’s “humiliating” celebrations and, later in the season, claimed “Judas is number one” because he had won three Premier League titles as the new man closed in on his first.

The depth of ill-feeling stretches back to Italy and, despite his vow of silence on Friday, Conte is fuming about the match-fixing slur because the Italian courts cleared him.

“In the past, both of us said things,” said the Chelsea manager, at the training ground in Surrey, on Friday.

“But we stop. For me it is stopped. I stop. I’m not interested to speak about this topic.”

Asked about shaking Mourinho by the hand, he repeated: “I’m not interested in this.”

Instead Conte spoke of the size and quality of United’s squad, their “great physicality” and “a massive game” and yet the friction remains clear enough.

Headstrong, successful and vain, entwined by their jobs, squabbling in the transfer market, flailing in the shadow of Manchester City, these two will collide again.  – Dailymail