Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has insisted that is virtually impossible to maintain good relationships with other bosses in football.
Historically Mourinho has clashed with the likes of Arsene Wenger, Sam Allardyce and Pep Guardiola and, although he has remained cordial with Manchester United managers Sir Alex Ferguson and Louis van Gaal, he claims that the nature of the game does not make it easy to stay friends with his rivals.
"Relationships in football between managers, I don't understand how and why," Mourinho told Yahoo!-Eurosport. "Especially how it is possible and when is it possible, because I see other managers 10 minutes before the game.
"I shake hands, I say hello. I see them sometimes after the game for a quick drink. I meet them once a season in some preseason meeting or in some UEFA conference but basically we don't have a relationship."
Mourinho, whose Chelsea side currently sit on top of the Premier League, was quick to play down any suggestion that this meant he did not respect most of his peers, instead insisting that there was simply not the time to cultivate a relationship.
"Do I respect them? Yes, almost all of them, the big majority of them obviously I respect," he added. "But relation? Unless you had something in the past which connects you the relation is very short."