Mourinho – who replaced Benitez as Chelsea boss in the summer on returning to England – has taken a swipe at the Spaniard by claiming that Chelsea were poor during his reign, despite the fact that he led them to success in the Europa League last season. Benitez, currently the manager of Napoli, has refused to take criticism and has given it back to Mourinho, write the Mirror.

Benitez has spoken of his past victories over Mourinho, when the two were managing Liverpool and Chelsea respectively. He points out that he maintains an ascendancy over the Portugese as he said, “Mourinho talks a lot about a lot of people, but I prefer to talk about facts. At Liverpool, with a squad half of the value of Chelsea, we twice knocked his Chelsea side out of the Champions League.”

He then taunted him for failing to succeed in Europe with Real Madrid. He continued, “Later, with the most expensive squad at Real Madrid, he did nothing in the Champions League.”

Mourinho has negatively commented about his managerial counterparts in the media on numerous occasions this season. However, with this reply from Benitez, it is sure to just put more wood on the fire.