Fergie hails Jose reaction
09 May 2007 - 08:37:33
Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has thanked his Chelsea counterpart, Jose Mourinho, for his praise of the Red Devils after their Premiership title success.
With the two sides set to meet at Stamford Bridge tonight, Ferguson is grateful for the Portuguese accepting, with good grace, that his side's two-year reign as champions has ended.
He commented: "Jose understands winning and losing are twins in a way.
"You have to deal with them in the same way. When you win, you don't gloat and when you lose you don't go bananas.
"He was very complimentary after their draw at Arsenal and I'll bring him a decent bottle of wine to make sure his tastes are looked after.
"There's a lot of satisfaction in the way we have won it, Chelsea were the most resilient opponents we have ever come across.
"I thought the signings of Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevcheko were designed to win them the European Cup and I just kept hoping that was what they were concentrating on.
"We tried to instil into the players' minds that we needed to get off to a good start and stay with Chelsea. It was something nobody else had done in the previous two years.
"Not only did we do that, we got in front and stayed there, which was a fantastic achievement because this is a relatively new team, which will hopefully get better."