Poor Little Rich Boy

At some stage people will wake up to the fact that there is often a stark difference between appearance and reality. Take Jose Mourinho for instance. Top manager. Highly successful. Champions League winner in Portugal. Back to back Premiership titles in England. With that sort of cv you would expect a man to be confident. Really confident. Far too confident, in fact, to feel the need to have a pop at other managers.

So why does he? The answer is that in reality he may not be the supremely confident man he appears. According to reports, his latest pronouncement is that if Theo Walcott had signed for Chelsea he would already have two Premiership appearances under his belt.

Now that’s intriguing – especially if you’re Shaun Wright-Phillips, who’s currently wondering why, having been a smash hit at Manchester City, he hasn’t made many appearances at Chelsea (which according to their manager seems to be a mecca for the development of young English players) and isn’t going to the World Cup in Germany. Of course, cynics have suggested that the principal motive for recruiting Shaun might have been to keep him away from Arsenal. Perish the thought – a manager as confident as Mourinho surely wouldn’t worry unduly about the players his rivals sign.

Or would he? Mourinho does have form when it comes to comments on Arsenal. There was all that business in which he seemed to be branding Arsene Wenger a ‘voyeur’ – a stance from which he eventually retreated while carefully appearing not to do so. And now there is the thinly veiled criticism of the Arsenal manager where Theo Walcott is concerned.

If Mourinho isn’t careful, people might think he is jealous that Theo chose Arsenal, and their manager, over Chelsea. After all, Theo is a bright lad and he might have taken account of Chelsea’s track record, during Mourinho’s time, of developing young players to the point where they become established first team regulars.

Then again, you couldn’t possibly imagine a man of Mourinho’s stature being insecure about Arsene Wenger. Could you?