Manchester United Manager Jose Mourinho has implied that English football could live without the League Cup. He also added however that as long as the competition is around, and his side is in it, they will take it seriously. Remember that this is the manager of the reigning title holders talking.
Mourinho told the BBC after United began their trophy defense with a 4-1 stomping of Championship side Burton Albion:
“You know, if the competition is an official competition, it is important for Manchester United and for me as a manager and I want the players to think the same way. If you ask me could the English football survive or even be better without this competition? Maybe.”
“Maybe we would be fresher for European competitions, for example.”
“But we have this competition, we have to respect, we have to respect the sponsors, we have to respect the opponents, we have to respect the professionalism of all of us trying to do the best.
“If we can win it, we win it. If we don’t win it is because the opponents were better than us.”
Mourinho’s men had a clean sheet going until the first minute of extra time, when the Brewers were able to score a late meaningless goal.
The League Cup has been re-branded, as this year it will be called the Carabao Cup, having been deemed the EFL Cup last season, and the Capital One Cup the previous season. For the sake of clarity and consistency, let’s just call it the League Cup every from now on moving forward.
The fact that the League Cup keeps changing its corporate sell out name all the time doesn’t help towards the cause of taking this thing seriously.
United will now take on Swansea City in the fourth round of the League Cup, an event that’s been around since 1960-1961.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud, LinkedIn and YouTube.