Paulo Sousa ignited the war of words with Neil Warnock ahead of the visit to QPR
A little over a month after annoying Warnock by saying Crystal Palace should be relegated because of administration, Sousa spoke out against Warnock - now in charge at QPR - ahead of the weekend clash.
Sousa said “He is always a controversial character
“Journalists love him because he gives the possibility to write a lot of things about what he says and does.
“But I see him shouting at his players, encouraging them to just tackle opponents, something I don’t like to see, something that is not good for football.
“I remember when I was at QPR playing against Palace, one of my players was kicked in the face and broke his nose. There was blood everywhere. This is something I don’t like to see.
“His teams are always competitive – they are encouraged to do that to make it difficult.
“They put out the foot in the challenge to try and take advantage.
“How do we cope with that? We will play football, that is our way. My concern is to play football, not to kick each other. I would like to see that on Saturday.
“I have respect for him.
“I do not treat anybody in the wrong way. I am always up front with people.
“But I do not remember him beating me. Perhaps that is why he says these things.”
Sousa also returns to Loftus Road for the first time since being dismissed as manager last season and he added “I am one of the managers who stayed longer than many!
“Of course they were not easy circumstances, but I have dignity and I fought all the time for that.
“I do not say anything about him (Briatore), but the circumstances were not so good for me – but not only me, it was the same for everyone.
“There has been difficult circumstances in the past, but the future looks brighter for them now. But I don’t need to prove anything to them. I only need to prove to my own players that I am good enough to improve them and I feel happy in that.
“I do feel proud that when QPR played at the Liberty the players were good to me and the fans sang my name.
“It shows they respected that I did a good job under all the circumstances.
“It will be different for me now, but I do not hope for a warm reaction, I hope for a win.
“We have games in front of us straight away that we have to fight for to achieve what we want this season.
“The players did not take the defeat well and there was real frustration.
“I saw some players very, very down after the game, more than I would expect. We have had to pick them up more than usual, they have had to recover mentally.
“It is important to have a victory after that, but we will only do that by being ourselves and sticking to our identity.”