After Chelsea played Athletico Madrid in the Champions League Jose Mourinho decided to play his mind games. He knows exactly what he’s doing and came out to the whole world and declared the second leg of the Champions League semi-final was his priority and he would rest key players at Anfield.

Jose Mourinho is the king of hype and predictably the press went crazy – Manchester City were reportedly “unhappy” at this revelation and it was the most talked about football topic for the last few days. And as expected, Liverpool didn’t know what was going on.

Mourinho’s aim was to give something to think about and that is exactly what happened. Another aim was to put all the pressure on Liverpool and remove any expectations on his Chelsea side. After all, Liverpool only needed a draw remember.

The Chelsea manager was fooling nobody with rhetoric about “not caring about the Premier League” but it was making headlines and getting press. We all know Mourinho is a winner and his record against the top sides is almost perfect.

The line up Chelsea started with was missing some big players, but they have a strong squad and predictably parked the bus. The reasons for this were twofold; it allowed Chelsea to ensure they got a result and it also justified his “weakened” selection.

Jose Mourinho clearly got to Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers because the complaints after the game were that “Chelsea parked two buses”, “Liverpool try to play football the right way” and “Chelsea were time-wasting”. All true and valid points, but the bottom line was Liverpool only needed a draw. All the hype surrounding Mourinho obviously got to Liverpool because they tried to win the game, and that was their downfall.

If you only need a point and Chelsea are “parking two buses” and clearly setup for the counter-attack, then surely playing out a dull-as-dish-water draw would have done? Chelsea posed no real attacking threat (the first goal was a mistake and the second on the break when Liverpool threw everyone forward) so why play into their hands? Liverpool’s fantastic recent run went to their heads and they believed their own hype.

If Chelsea only needed a draw and were playing at home you can bet your house that he wouldn’t have approached the game the same way Brendan Rodgers did.

The result of all this is that Liverpool no longer have the title in their own hands.

I thought it would be interesting to conduct a poll and see what the consensus was amongst the Arsenal fans – if you only had one choice, would you pick FA Cup glory (and a 5th place finish) or have Champions League football next season?

Barring any real calamity (which lets be honest, Arsenal are perfectly capable of doing) we should be on course to do both. We face Hull City Tigers in the FA Cup Final, and have a one point advantage over Everton in the race for fourth place, who theoretically have the tougher fixtures remaining.

But what if we had to prioritise and choose one over the other?

Which one would you want the most?

Would it be the first major trophy in 9 seasons? Which would end Arsenal’s barren spell and hopefully provide a springboard for greater success?

Or would you rather sacrifice the FA Cup and have guaranteed Champions League football next season? Maybe Champions League football is more important because it guarantees vital revenue the club depends upon and more importantly, it attracts the best players which is going to be essential if we are looking to build on this season and add even more world class players (such as Özil) to Arsenal.

So what’s your choice?

Cast your vote below and leave your thoughts in the comments section!

Manchester United finally sacked the genius that is David Moyes. Some people are still wondering why a man who won nothing as a manager and had no Champions League experience failed at a massive club like Manchester United.

Even before he was appointed, I made the point that as Everton manager, he failed every big test he was given. He failed to progress through the Champions League qualifier game to reach the Champions League proper, and failed to beat a Wigan side at home in the FA Cup Semi Final a couple of seasons ago. His football philosophy is limited and you wonder if Sir Alex Ferguson was just having a massive laugh at the expense of Manchester United and their owners. With the success Ferguson has achieved, you would think he knew a little bit about who was a decent football manager. Or maybe David Moyes is just Fergie’s best mate.

Anyway, the inevitable has happened and David Moyes has got the boot. It seems that Manchester United waited until now so they didn’t have to pay up the full 6 year contract as waiting until United were mathematically unable to qualify for the Champions League triggered a clause in the contract so they would only have to pay off one year of Moyes’ contract.

He spent massive money of Marrouane Felliani and Juan Mata who have failed to make any meaningful impression this season. He fell out with big players such as Ferdinand, Evra and Vidic and also had less than complimentary comments from Welbeck, Van Persie and others. The writing was on the wall and with only 3 games of the season remaining, the surprise to me is that they didn’t wait until the summer to sack him.

The bottom line is however hilarious this whole situation is and how amusing Manchester United’s demise this season has been, the only way is up for the red side of Manchester. What David Moyes has done is given the owners of Manchester United the need to make sure next season will be a successful one – whatever the cost. And that is bad news for Arsenal.

At this stage, speculation to who will replace Moyes ranges from managers such as Diego Simone, Jurgen Klopp, Louis Van Gaal, Frank de Boer and Carlo Ancelotti – and other top names have been linked as well.

So whatever happens, United will recruit a manager who is miles better than Moyes (although that’s not difficult) and they will be a much stronger force next season. They won’t have European football to distract them in the league (just like Liverpool this season) and they will be a contender for the Premier League. That means Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United will be fighting for the Top Four positions.

If Liverpool win the league, they will be using that status to kick on and become an even bigger force, Jose Mourinho has always said that next season is the one where they will seriously compete for the title and Manchester City have so much money it is difficult to see them not get stronger next season. United will be a bigger force (because they can’t get any worse) so where does that leave Arsenal?

Will Arsene Wenger win the FA Cup and then retire? Because next season looks to be the biggest challenge yet to Arsenal’s ability to finish in the Top Four.

What a difference a week makes.

In the space of 5 days, there were 3 games which turned Arsene Wenger from a pariah to a genius.

Arsenal’s season was on the verge of completely collapsing, and Saturday afternoon was billed as the biggest in Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal career. Win, and things looked up but lose, and it looked like curtains for Arsene.

So what happened? Well for 82 minutes, Arsene was on the brink of facing the biggest shit storm as Arsenal manager as Wigan were leading and looked to have booked their place in the FA Cup semi final. But Arsene’s luck was in and with less than 10 minutes of normal time remaining, Arsenal scored an equaliser.

It really was Arsene’s lucky day as Per Mertesacker’s chance only came from a completely miscued shot from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The ball fortunately bounced into the path of the BFG and he headed in from close range.

Then, if Arsenal fans hadn’t suffered enough we barely made it through on penalties against what is essentially a Championship side.

So the first task was complete. Arsenal were in the FA Cup Final, albeit it with a lot of luck.

Then onto Tuesday. West Ham United were the opposition in a game we had to win to keep in the race for fourth place. West Ham scored the opening goal but again the Gods shined down for Arsene. Lukas Podolski scored a massively important goal just before half time, the timing of which could not have been better. Olivier Giroud scored a phenomenal goal, one which 9 times out of 10 he would have mis-controlled and never made the opportunity to score.

So a bit of luck against West Ham.

Then last night, Everton surprisingly slipped up against Crystal Palace in a result no-one saw coming (unless you’re Iain Moody I suppose).

That left us one point clear in the race for fourth and put Arsenal firmly back in the driving seat for Champions League football next season.

What this leaves us with is the notion that Arsenal’s season is more successful than Manchester City’s. There is suddenly a huge amount of optimism around the club – we can finish with a major trophy and Champions League football – better than Manchester City, better than Everton, better than Manchester United and depending on how the results go, better than either Chelsea or Liverpool come May the 17th.

Suddenly, a disastrous season has the potential to be a “successful one”.

But it all comes down to the fortunate equaliser and penalty shootout against Wigan (which we all know is somewhat like a lottery), the decisive moments in the West Ham game and the surprising Everton result against Crystal Palace.

So let me ask you this, is Arsene Wenger a genius or just lucky?

Cast you vote here:

And you can leave your opinions in the comments section below.