Battle of the Bosses: Mourinho back on top, Conte confusion

Slaven Bilic has turned his focus to the January transfer window, at least going on the level of speculation linking West Ham with moves for a number of players. They’re not fussy. Like a Football Manager user setting the search filter to ‘anyone,’ the Croatian has something of a scattergun approach to signing players, making unsuccessful bids all over the place. At least things are going better for him on the pitch, right? Err, about that…

West Ham came into their double-header against the two Manchester clubs on a decent run of form. Since the watershed 5-1 mauling at home to Arsenal they had won three from five. Now, however, they have lost three straight.

Against Man City, the Hammers were hammered. Pep Guardiola has found things tough in recent weeks, but this was a stroll in the park - the Olympic Park. The Catalan’s first taste of the FA Cup was a pleasant one, sampling what the competition is all about: playing substandard no-hopers at grounds completely unsuited for hosting top-level football. Magic of the cup.

Antonio Conte has seen most things right at Chelsea. He saw that Diego Costa still had the potential to be one of the best strikers in Europe. He saw that Nemanja Matic and N’Golo Kante would make a formidable midfield duo. He even saw that Victor Moses had the makings of a good wing-back. But he saw John Terry’s red card in the win over Peterborough wrong.

“I think the decision wasn’t right, this decision from the referee,” the Italian moaned. “He didn’t take the opponent and also the second reason was because behind John there was Ivanovic to cover John. You have to respect the referee decision, but in this case maybe we will do an appeal for this situation.”

By not ‘taking’ the opponent it’s not clear what Conte means. If he means ‘taking’ Lee Angol for a nice meal, it’s true he didn’t do that. Or ‘taking’ the Peterborough player hostage, he didn’t do that either. ‘Taking’ Angol clean out of the game and denying him a goalscoring opportunity, though? Yeah, he did that.

Sam Allardyce loves a mind game more than laughing in the face of Chico Flores. The new Crystal Palace boss even opened up over the festive period on how he relished winding up Arsene Wenger, getting under the Arsenal manager’s skin back in the good old days.

Since then the Eagles have failed to win a single game under Allardyce, with a return to the new manager’s roots proving not much more fruitful. Bolton was once Big Sam’s haunt. Now the place has changed: they’re in the third tier, Kevin Davies isn’t there and the Reebok is no longer the Reebok. The 0-0 draw was reflective of how Allardyce is struggling right now.

This was after he said a return to the club where it all began might spark him and his team into life. It didn’t. Maybe Allardyce needs to look out his mind games textbook. Anything to get him back to the way he used to be (minus the meetings with dodgy businessmen).

The Arsenal dressing room mustn’t have been a very pleasant place to be at half-time on Saturday. Losing 1-0 to Preston North End, Arsene Wenger presumably read the riot act to his side, particularly given that they were actually fortunate to only be one goal down, such was the standard of their performance.

Not for the first time this season, Wenger’s feud was with his own team - or at least, it should have been. It’s difficult to imagine the Frenchman fuming. The only time he seems to lose his rag is when he can’t zip up his jacket. But whatever he said to his players at the break against Preston, it worked. Maybe Wenger should get angry more often.

Jurgen Klopp tried to put a brave face on the realisation that he will now have to make the six-hour trip down to the Devon coast for a replay against Plymouth Argyle. “We go to Plymouth for the first time in my life, all good,” he grinned like a cheshire cat, as he always does.

But if the German was to be completely honest with himself his decision to field the youngest Liverpool side in history on Sunday backfired. With the Reds chasing the Premier League title and the League Cup, the last thing they needed was another fixture to add to their schedule. But that’s what they have. Maybe Klopp will take his players for a 99 down on the promenade at the seaside. Nobody tell him they no longer cost 99p, though.

Not since the great hairdryer brandisher of Govan himself, Sir Alex Ferguson, was the manager have Manchester United strung together eight straight wins, but with Jose Mourinho now at the helm that’s exactly what they did by dismantling Reading 4-0 on Saturday.

Sure, Jaap Stam might have been better served facing United on his own given the lack of fight and resolve his players showed at Old Trafford, but the manner of victory for the home side is what made this so impressive. Mourinho’s team were utterly rampant to the point that this could have finished in double figures. Even without Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, David De Gea, Antonio Valencia and the other first teamers rested for this match, Man Utd looked like Man Utd again. We've said that a few times in recent weeks.