Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham take note - the EFL Cup is no joke to Jose Mourinho

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John Dillon27 February 2017

It was a final which gave the League Cup a good name again, no matter how many titles it has had down the years.

In its latest guise as the EFL Cup, Sunday's electrifying Wembley showdown also made clear what Tottenham, West Ham and perhaps even Arsenal were missing out on.

Southampton, despite their defeat, confirmed their growing reputation as a serious force in the ranks outside of football's elite.

Manchester United, at their more rarefied level of operation and powered so forcefully by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, coated the Jose Mourinho era with its first layer of silver.

Mourinho has always placed more value on the competition than his top-level rival coaches.

Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

That is why he won it three times for Chelsea, the 2005 defeat of Liverpool in in Cardiff securing his first trophy for the club.

That is why he used Sunday's occasion to mark his takeover at Old Trafford in the same way.

The lesson for Spurs contained in that approach - emphasised rather than diminished by their 4-0 demolition of Stoke City earlier in the afternoon - was that for all the rich promise they show under Mauricio Pochettino, the return of the Glory Days has to start somewhere; with a pot placed in the cabinet.

The League Cup will offer that opportunity next season if their current FA Cup run ends without success.

Tottenham are making so much progress under their Argentine coach, but the title is out of reach this season when it was a serious prospect this time last year.

In Pictures | Tottenham vs Stoke | 26/02/2017

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What has to happen is for Spurs to turn this into something tangible. Sunday’s final was a thrilling reminder that the League Cup offers far more than some critics have suggested in recent times.

Mourinho uses the competition as the equivalent of throwing a six to start in a board game. After that, the trophies roll in. The winning habit is established and young players get the taste for glory.

Surely in their excellent current shape, Spurs are perfectly capable of following the same blueprint?

Meanwhile, Southampton's recent years of advancement and evolution were given a stamp of public acknowledgement by their performance at Wembley.

This made the occasion of extreme value to the Saints, even if their hearts were broken near the end.

Getty Images

Surely, given the expectation with which both teams seasons began, the fans of Tottenham and West Ham must have been touched by a twinge of envy that Saints were there to embellish the afternoon so impressively.

After all, it’s fair to say that a place in the final of this competition might have been what West Ham fans could have expected as the dividend from their excellent final campaign at Upton Park.

West Ham's Boleyn Ground at Upton Park - In pictures

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After the emotional high point of last season's seventh-place finish and the epic farewell to Upton Park, one option was for a comedown and a tricky first season in the club's new home at the Olympic Stadium.

The other was to kick on and quickly begin fulfilling the raised expectations which the club's hierarchy have stated are the major reason for the ground switch.

In familiar fashion, West Ham chose the first option.

They reached the last eight of the League Cup but capitulated meekly in a dismal 4-1 defeat at Old Trafford.

For the Hammers, the competition has served only to underline that they remain fourth in the hierarchy of the big London outfits.

For Southampton, a club of smaller stature, the Wembley trip underlined the progress they have been making for several seasons now.

Spurs have bigger fish to fry than the Hammers and hope to be in the Champions League again next season.

But as it was for Mourinho's Chelsea, a League Cup triumph would be the perfect kick-start.

Indeed, Spurs have a fine League Cup tradition. The victories of 1971 against Aston Villa and 1973 against Norwich are enshrined in the memories of older fans as major high points.

Ralph Coates in the 1973 final for Spurs Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

Further successes in the League Cup in 1999 and 2008 again cemented Tottenham's affection for it. This record places the club fifth in the list of all-time winners. They have been runners-up four times, too, although this year's journey ended with a fourth-round defeat by Liverpool.

The FA Cup offers another route to glory with a high-profile quarter-final against Millwall looming. But most of the other big guns are in the last eight as well - Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Mancester City (and Lincoln City, of course).

That hands Stamford Bridge's new chief, Antonio Conte, the promise of winning the Double in his first season.

So perhaps the fact that he didn't follow Mourinho's route-map and win the League Cup first won't matter too much.

Ironically for Arsenal, the 2011 defeat in the final of this competition by Birmingham City did them a lot of harm - soothed eventually by the FA Cup wins of 2014 and 2015.

The second of those wins was supposed provide a kick-start towards a first title triumph since 2004. But it has hasn't materialised.

Mourinho, you guess, will have a far more calculated idea of how to turn his Wembley triumph on Sunday into a more meaningful follow-up than Arsene Wenger has managed in recent times.

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