José Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, is becoming the master of the mind games; they don’t call him the “Special One” for nothing.

Yesterday he and Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, went back and forth with comments directed at each other. Wenger said the title was Chelsea’s to lose, now that they are on top of the table.

When asked why the other teams are playing down their chances of winning the league, Wenger said it is because of a fear to fail, to which Mourinho responded that Wenger was a “specialist in failure”, having not won a title for eight years.

The mind games have always been there in football; it’s just that you get more publicity today by doing it with everything going up on social media. Clubs hold press conferences on Fridays before the weekend games and that is when managers, those who play the mind games, provide the material. You have to be a strong individual not to let it affect your match preparation the next day.

Mourinho is very good at it, probably even better than Alex Ferguson because he is at it all the time. Regardless of what happens, he has a comment to make. It could have an impact and sometimes can work in the other team’s favour, so it can go either way and you just have to pick the right moment to use it.

I remember having a team in California when one of the opposing coaches made a comment and we just posted the comment on the board. When the players saw the comments, that was enough to get them fired up to play.

Chelsea are travelling back North to face Manchester City for the FA Cup fifth round today and after their recent win there in the league, I would have thought Mourinho would have had something to say about City rather than Arsenal. But that is why they call him the “Special One”. He’s like Frank Sinatra: he does it his way.

Arsenal are playing Liverpool for the second straight weekend and, after last Saturday’s humiliating 5-1 loss at Anfield, they will relish the chance to meet them at home. I watched a bit of that match and if they cannot motivate themselves after what happened last weekend, then they don’t belong out there. To get hammered and have to play the same team the next week, if they lay down, then they are weak mentally.

Arsenal players will have to come out and show some guts because to be beaten 5-1 on national television is embarrassing. Let’s hope they have the character to turn things around.

They do have some injuries that are affecting them: Walcott is out for the rest of the season, Flamini, who came from AC Milan, had the three-game suspension as well and the midfielder Aaron Ramsay has been out for some time. These are big misses to Arsenal.

I have always said the race will be between Manchester City and Chelsea and I think City have the squad to do it. It is up to them how far they want to go. When you go through the squads man for man, City have that extra bit of depth.

I am tipping City and Arsenal to be among the teams to reach the last eight of the FA Cup. Sunderland versus Southampton is a tricky one, with Southampton playing very well this season. I’ll go with a draw there. I expect Cardiff to win at home against Wigan, the holders, Sheffield Wednesday to beat Charlton, City to beat Chelsea, Everton to beat Swansea and Sheffield United to get past Nottingham Forest. I expect Arsenal to beat Liverpool, while my only away win would be Hull to win at Brighton on Monday, or at least to force a replay.

One of the most exciting relegation battles is developing in the Premier League where the bottom half of the table are all threatened. With two straight wins, my team, West Ham, have climbed out of the bottom three and are now eleventh, which would normally be a reasonably comfortable position.

However, only a few points separate them from the bottom three, so there will be a lot of work for all the teams to do between now and the end of the season. Lose one or two games and you are right back in the relegation zone.