Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger Comment on Lack of Post-Match Handshake

Jose Mourinho suggested Arsene Wenger deliberately avoided shaking his hand after Arsenal beat Chelsea 1-0 to win the FA Community Shield. As manager of the losing team, Mourinho stood waiting for every Arsenal player after they had collected the trophy. But though he claims he waited for it, Wenger never came his way, per Goal.com's Liam Twomey:

"

[At the final whistle] I was doing what the status of my club and my status as a manager what I have to do: wait for the winners in a way where you only miss me when you want to miss me, and every Arsenal player came in my direction which was the easiest thing to do because I was right there.

If other people didn’t come in my direction it’s not a story.

"

Those comments read like a pretty thinly veiled attack on the Gunners boss. Mourinho also chided Arsenal's defensive-minded performance at Wembley, claiming Wenger's men left their "philosophy in the dressing room," per Sky Sports.

Wenger's response was to applaud his team's will to win, according to another Sky Sports report: "I don't think that's giving up your philosophy. We wanted to win, we behaved like that. I'm quite proud of that."

No matter what he thought of his team's performance, Wenger did appear to avoid any chance of shaking hands with perhaps his fiercest rival, according to BBC Sport's David Ornstein:

Of course, many would claim he is well within his rights to spurn Mourinho after the Stamford Bridge chief's lengthy history of saying less than flattering things about the Frenchman.

Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press

That history, which has included famous and acid-tongued snipes such as "voyeur" and "specialist in failure," per Twomey, has left Wenger feeling disrespected: "I believe in a job where you have to respect everybody. It’s difficult job but it’s vital."

Twomey also noted how Wenger stressed he'd shook hands with some after the game but insisted there's "nothing special" in this story.

Whether you agree with Wenger's assessment or not will largely depend on your view of Mourinho's actions. Some will no doubt view his now frequent ritual of shaking hands with every member of the opposition (bar the mascot) when he loses a match as classy sportsmanship.

Others may see it as a cringe-worthy attempt to stay in the spotlight even in defeat. By making it an issue post-match, Mourinho has certainly succeeded in deflecting some attention away from the fact that Chelsea were far from impressive at Wembley.