Fight With Conte Over – Mourinho

Jose Mourinho says his feud with Antonio Conte is over after Manchester United beat Chelsea at Old Trafford.

The two managers shook hands before and after the game, which United won 2-1 thanks to goals from Romelu Lukaku and substitute Jesse Lingard.

Chelsea had led through Willian’s first-half strike, but now find themselves six points behind United with 10 games to go.

Mourinho and Conte have been involved in a furious war of words during which the Italian called the United manager “senile” and “fake” while Mourinho referenced Conte’s implication in an Italian match-fixing scandal despite being cleared.

Mourinho, though, insists the pair have now buried the hatchet, telling a news conference on Sunday: “I think the handshake doesn’t need any words.

“I think that’s what me and Antonio want to show to everyone and the handshake before and after the match is an example that everything in football, you have to move and respect each other.

“Mourinho and Conte are not two ordinary persons in football, we have a history, an image and I’m really happy with that.”

United’s victory was inspired by a terrific performance from Lukaku, who scored one and made one either side of half-time. His goal was the first of his career against former club Chelsea and his first for United against a top-six rival.

Mourinho added: “He played fantastically well.

“He had, in my opinion, the same start as the team. The team didn’t start well, the team didn’t start very confident and it happened to him, he was losing some balls in the first control, he was a little bit lost but then he went together with the team, the team was improving, improving, improving.”

Mourinho’s team could have ended the day level on points with Chelsea had the result not gone their way. Instead, they have leap-frogged Liverpool to go back into second and open up a six-point lead over Chelsea, who drop to fifth after Tottenham’s win over Crystal Palace earlier in the day.

Mourinho said: “The top one is there and will be there.

“Arsenal really needs to win against City in the next Premier League match or then the distance will be too big for them like it happened with us last season.

“Apart from that, we are four very good teams, all of them fighting to be in the quarterfinals of the Champions League and that shows the dimension of the teams, but from four of us somebody has to be out and the fight will be until the end.”

Source: ESPN FC