"A little man" in the past, present and future. That’s how Antonio Conte described Jose Mourinho, in response to the Manchester United manager’s match-fixing jibe.
But, Mourinho was only responding to Conte calling him "senile". Then again, Mourinho did call the former Juventus man a "clown" and so on and so forth.
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact starting point of the war-of-words between the former Chelsea manager and the current one.
If you really want to find the "who fired first" moment, so to speak, you have to ask yourself a few questions first.
“Do I support Manchester United?”, “Do I support Chelsea?”, If your answer to either of those questions is yes, then your conclusion may differ.
Some say it started when Conte jumped into the crown in Chelsea’s 4-0 thrashing of United last season, others say Mourinho hitting out over the celebration that is the cause of the rift.
Either way, the beginning of this circus doesn’t matter. When it comes to an end it almost certainly won’t mean anything, but the show is actually important for this year’s Premier League.
In a league which self proclaims to be the "most entertaining league in the world", the entertainment has not been from the on-field action.
Manchester City’s expansive football has helped Pep Guardiola essentially wrap up the league title and we haven’t even reach February.
Their dominance has been root of the boring nature of the league this year.
Compared to City, the rest of the top teams have been below par, domestically at least.
Manchester United are boring, Chelsea have failed to find last year’s form and as fast-paced and exciting Liverpool’s football may be, their defensive issues have again held them back from being serious title contenders.
Again, we have a league where one team dominates and the others grovel for Champions League football.
Don’t get me wrong, this is the strongest line-up of top six teams in a while - Champions League form shows that - but, when the league comes to a close and City secure the title, what use will getting to a quarter, semi, or even final of Europe be to Liverpool or United unless they win?
So what do you turn to when the football is uninteresting? All of the off-field stupidity like two men of 48 and 54 years old respectively throwing nasty comments at each other in their press conferences.
However immature or silly the exchange may seem, it’s something the Premier League needs to compensate for its shortcomings.
It has been happening for a couple of seasons now.
The league leaders have been the main narrative, the others trot along behind while the off-field goings on like sackings, big-money transfers and public criticism of referees dominate the headlines.
The last real competitive league was in 2013-14 when Liverpool coughed up the title to Man City in the final weeks of the season.
Yet, viewership figures in the Premier League are reaching record highs and online giants Amazon and Facebook are reportedly entering the bidding war to show the games.
The superficial entertainment has become part-and-parcel of the league and is even playing an important role in growing the wealth of the league.
However low-brow the Mourinho-Conte row is, ask yourself this, are you not entertained?
