Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho escalates Antonio Conte feud: 'What never happened to me is to be suspended for match-fixing'

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Jose Mourinho took his escalating feud with Chelsea manager Antonio Conte to a new level on Friday night.

The Manchester United boss hit back during his post-match press conference after Conte suggested he was becoming 'senile' earlier in the day.

He should have been discussing how late goals from Jesse Lingard and Romelu Lukaku had guided his side into the FA Cup's fourth round after a tough tie against Championship promotion-chasers Derby.

Jose Mourinho took his escalating feud with Chelsea manager Antonio Conte to a new level

Conte had launched an extraordinary attack on Mourinho following recent comments

Instead when asked about Conte's comments, he bit.

The Chelsea manager's own barb had come because he thought Mourinho had accused him of acting like a clown on the touchline, and the United manager said: 'Look, I don't blame him (for the reaction), honestly I don't blame him. I was speaking about myself, saying I don't need to behave as a clown to show passion, that I control my emotions in a better way.

'What never happened to me, and what will never happen to me, is to be suspended for match-fixing, that never happened to me and will never happen.'

That was a thinly veiled reference to when Conte was implicated in a match-fixing scandal while manager of Siena in Italy seven years ago. He was suspended for 10 months, then reduced to four while managing Juventus in 2012.

Conte was accused of doing nothing to prevent the manipulation of games, a charge of which he was finally acquitted last May in a fast-track trial in Cremona.

The prosecutor had requested a suspended six-month sentence and fine of over £6,000, but the accusations of sporting fraud were ruled to have been baseless.

Mourinho had made reference to managers acting like 'clowns' on the touchline

Mourinho was reminded of Conte's past after his match-fixing remarks. The Portuguese replied: 'He did? Not me.'

Mourinho believes his remarks on touchline etiquette were taken out of context.

'I don't need the Chelsea manager to say that I made mistakes in the past,' he said. 'I will make them in the future. I know that I celebrated goals running 50 metres, that I celebrated goals sliding on my knees, I celebrated by jumping to the crowd. 

'I'm not free of that, especially if we score a winning goal in a specific moment, I'm not free to have an out-of-control reaction but what I was trying to say was I behaved bad a few times and in this moment I control myself much better.'

The reference was to when Conte was implicated in a match-fixing scandal while Siena boss

United are hoping to head for a warm-weather break in Dubai this month. But if Stoke are taken to an FA Cup third round replay by Coventry, the trip will be off because their Premier League game on Monday week will be brought forward.

'Everybody wants to go to Dubai,' Mourinho added. 'A week of good training, good facilities but now it depends on Stoke's result. We go Monday but if they draw we don't go.'

Marcus Rashford missed a number of chances at Old Trafford and now has just two goals in his last 21 games.

'I'm not worried with Marcus because his good moment will arrive,' Mourinho said before adding of Henrikh Mkhitaryan's half-time substitution: 'I didn't like what I did. Unfair. He played well. My feeling was that Rashford is not going to score a goal and because of that I'm not going to lose time and I needed Romelu (Lukaku), so sacrificed Mkhitaryan.'