Arsene Wenger refused to apologize to Jose Mourinho for pushing the Portuguese tactician during the Gunners’ 2-0 loss at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Wenger had been infuriated byGary Cahill’s late tackle on Alexis Sanchez, as he launched out of his technical area and across that of the Chelsea coach. As Mourinho stood his ground and tried to usher theFrenchman back, Wenger pushed him.
Though the contact was plain for everyone to see, there will be no further action taken as the referee saw the clash and decided not to send off eithermanager. Asked whether he regretted the incident after the game, Wenger said: “What is there to regret? I wanted to go from A to B, and somebody confronted me before B without any sign ofwelcome. B was Sanchez, to see how badly he was injured.”
Asked to describe his version of the events as they happened, Mourinho said: “There are two technical areas. One for me, onefor him. He was coming into my technical area and not for the right reasons, to give some technical instructions. He was coming to push the referee for a red card, and I didn’t like that. But noproblem. I think [linesman] Jonathan Moss did a good job, and [referee Ron] Atkinson too. I’ve done so many wrong things in football, sometimes due to emotion,but not this time. This time I was just in my technical area and it was not my problem. Game over. Story over.”