Arsenal vs Reading: Steve Clarke going it alone as Royals' manager refuses to be drawn on Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho

Steve Clarke does not like to talk about other managers. He sees himself as a self-made coach, free from football's back-slapping patronage network.

Tomorrow Clarke’s Reading team play Arsenal at Wembley, competing for a place at next month’s FA Cup final. He will be facing Arsene Wenger, one of the giants of the modern English game, but he does not give the impression that that particular aspect of the afternoon means a lot to him.

“I don’t know him very well,” Clarke said of Wenger, before making it very clear that shoulder-rubbing is not for him.

“The managerial sphere is not really one I stay in too much in,” Clarke explained. “I’m quite an independent person, I like to live on my own. I like to make my own decisions. I like to make my own mistakes. I like to recover from my own mistakes. I don’t go picking up the phone and asking other managers what you should be doing. If you’re doing that then you don’t have great confidence in yourself, and I believe in myself.”

So Clarke does not especially want to talk about Wenger and not does he want to talk about Jose Mourinho, the man he worked under for so long at Chelsea but from whose shadow he wants to break away. “He’s not involved on Saturday,” Clarke bristled, when asked about his former mentor. “They’re playing Manchester United.” Has Clarke spoken to Mourinho, though, for advice? “He’s too busy trying to win the Premier League.”

Clarke, clearly, does not want to be seen as some extension of Mourinho, or in any way in his debt. But when Clarke talks about the game, about his plans and his standards, it is not difficult to hear an echo of the Portuguese.

“We have to play almost the perfect game,” Clarke said. “We have to be solid, resolute and mentally strong. It’s a game where we can’t make too many mistakes. If you make mistakes against the top teams they will punish you. If we can do that we’ve got a chance.”

Aiming for that error-free utopia is, broadly, how Mourinho sees the game too. It is the unreachable standard and Clarke admits that no team of his has ever played the perfect game. “Probably none,” he said. “So it’s a big ask. But you have to ask it.”

“If you make mistakes in possession and give the ball away to Arsenal they will punish you,” he said. “If you make silly mistakes around your own box they can capitalise. Maybe in the Championship you can make two or three mistakes in a game. But if you make them against a top team they will take their chances. We have to be aware of that.”

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So do not expect Reading to come out and play expansive football tomorrow. The priority will be to be compact, clever, and to keep Arsenal out.

“I’d love to have 60% possession but you have to be realistic,” Clarke said. “Arsenal are going to have more of the ball than us, so we have to have a good defensive shape. We have to press at the right time and win the ball back, and when we win it back we have to show that we can be a threat.”