Chelsea Vs Tottenham on Sunday's Capital One Cup showdown

Jose Mourinho has declared that Sunday's Capital One Cup showdown with Tottenham will be the most significant final that he has faced in all his working life.

The Chelsea boss maintains that his determination to look forwards and not back means that it eclipses even the greatest European triumphs he has previously masterminded.

'The most important game of my career is the next one. The other ones are in the club museum. My medals are somewhere at home, I don't know where they are,' he said on Friday, insisting that he was not being disingenuous.

'Do I look stupid? This cup final is the most important of my career, more important than the Champions League. More important than the other cups I've played before. I don't think about the consequences, I just think about this game. We have a final to win on Sunday and nothing else matters.'

Mourinho, still seething over the absence of Nemanja Matic after his ban for retaliating against Burnley's Ashley Barnes, feels it is vital that the team he is currently fashioning get used to winning on the biggest stage.

'With a new team and people who have not had dozens of finals at Wembley, we will try and bring this generation of players and this new side to make Wembley something normal for us. 'Normal' in the sense that we will try and get there year after year.'

Mourinho's insatiable appetite for winning means that, despite the significance he is placing on what is traditionally the poor relation of Wembley finals he will not see it as something which defines the season.

'The emotions remain 24 hours. We play Sunday, on Monday we have to train again. We have to think about the game on Wednesday. We have no time for stupid celebrations, we can't be crying for a week also.'

Chelsea Vs Tottenham on Sunday's Capital One Cup showdown

Jose Mourinho has declared that Sunday's Capital One Cup showdown with Tottenham will be the most significant final that he has faced in all his working life.

The Chelsea boss maintains that his determination to look forwards and not back means that it eclipses even the greatest European triumphs he has previously masterminded.

'The most important game of my career is the next one. The other ones are in the club museum. My medals are somewhere at home, I don't know where they are,' he said on Friday, insisting that he was not being disingenuous.

'Do I look stupid? This cup final is the most important of my career, more important than the Champions League. More important than the other cups I've played before. I don't think about the consequences, I just think about this game. We have a final to win on Sunday and nothing else matters.'

Mourinho, still seething over the absence of Nemanja Matic after his ban for retaliating against Burnley's Ashley Barnes, feels it is vital that the team he is currently fashioning get used to winning on the biggest stage.

'With a new team and people who have not had dozens of finals at Wembley, we will try and bring this generation of players and this new side to make Wembley something normal for us. 'Normal' in the sense that we will try and get there year after year.'

Mourinho's insatiable appetite for winning means that, despite the significance he is placing on what is traditionally the poor relation of Wembley finals he will not see it as something which defines the season.

'The emotions remain 24 hours. We play Sunday, on Monday we have to train again. We have to think about the game on Wednesday. We have no time for stupid celebrations, we can't be crying for a week also.'

Bayer Leverkusen vs Atletico Madrid 1-0 Hakan Calhanoglu Goal - (UCL) 2015

The hair is fair once again but in other respects it was the same old grumpy Fernando Torres that Liverpool and Chelsea fans will recognise as he suffered a nightmare return to the Champions League with Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night.

Torres, who played a cameo in Chelsea's 2012 Champions League triumph, had waited 10 long months to take part in Europe's top club competition, last appearing in Chelsea's defeat against Atletico in last April's semi-final.

Since then, he has been shown the door by Jose Mourinho and sent out on loan back to Madrid by his new club AC MilanThe hair is fair once again but in other respects it was the same old grumpy Fernando Torres that Liverpool and Chelsea fans will recognise as he suffered a nightmare return to the Champions League with Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night.

Torres, who played a cameo in Chelsea's 2012 Champions League triumph, had waited 10 long months to take part in Europe's top club competition, last appearing in Chelsea's defeat against Atletico in last April's semi-final.

Since then, he has been shown the door by Jose Mourinho and sent out on loan back to Madrid by his new club AC Milan

With Atletico trailing 1-0 to Leverkusen, the script was written for Torres to save the day when he was sent on as a 64th minute substitute by Diego Simeone.

At one time, particularly around his Euro 2008 peak, Torres would have been the hero. Not any more.

His 75th minute header from close range was ruled out because referee Pavel Kralovec adjudged the initial Atletico corner to have gone out of play before it reached the stooping Spaniard at the far post.

Torres looked irritated by that decision, waving his arms in impotent fury. And further sulking was to come, in the final minute he was chopped down by Emir Spahic.

Enraged, he got up and shoved the nearest Leverkusen player to him, which happened to be Son Heung-Min. 

Torres became the 10th player on the night to be booked and soon after the final whistle blew, leaving last season's beaten Champions League finalists to contemplate going out at the last-16 stage this time.

The second leg, in which Atletico have to claw back a 1-0 deficit without another ex-Chelsea player Tiago who was sent off in Germany, might be the last chance for 30-year-old Torres to show he still has super-human powers, even if they haven't been seen for a number of years.

He signed for Milan in the summer, scored one goal for them in Serie A, and though Atletico fans were excited by his three goals in the Copa del Rey, he is still looking for his first strike in La Liga.

And yet, Atletico is the club where it all started for him. The fans love him and the team need him as Simeone admitted.

'I brought on Torres because we needed some fresh impetus,' he said. 'We have a lot of injuries and suspensions going into the second leg but we still have hope.'

Torres will have to put the tetchiness of the first leg behind him and start smiling, and scoring, again quickly.

Arsenal side suffer disastrous 3-1 home defeat to Monaco

Arsene Wenger savaged his Arsenal team and blamed ‘suicidal defending’ after they crashed to a 3-1 defeat against Monaco at the Emirates in the Champions League.

The furious Arsenal manager claimed his players were not mentally prepared for the first-leg as goals from Geoffrey Kondogbia, Dimitar Berbatov and substitute Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco condemned them.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had scored a spectacular goal for Arsenal to bring it back to 2-1, but Arsenal will need at least three in the return leg on March 17 to progress.

Wenger said: ‘We missed the chances and we were a bit suicidal defensively. We were not at the level we want to be.

‘The second and the third goals are suicidal. We came back to 2-1 and we have no right to let them score as third. ‘It makes our task difficult in the second leg. We lost our nerves and rationality on the pitch, and the heart took over the head.

‘At this level it doesn’t work. Mentally we were not ready, we were not sharp enough to get into this game. We paid for it.

‘In the first 20 minutes there was enough room to win it. If you look at the chances we could have won.

‘Football is not down to paper it is down to performance. The players wanted to come back from 2-1 to 2-2 and forgot the elementary cautiousness needed.

‘We have a smaller chance to win but we will go for it. We have to recover from that.’ Wenger claimed his team were naive in the first leg and they face a massive battle to reach the quarter-final after losing this first leg in these circumstances.

Oxlade-Chamberlain had brought Arsenal back into the tie after coming on as a substitute, but his mistake allowed Monaco to score a breakaway third.

The Arsenal manager added: ‘We had a lot of possession and defensively we were not at the level we need to be.

‘But our weakness was mental more than anything. We rushed our game, we knew it was bad at half time and were too impatient. This is a 180 minute game and if you look at the second and third goal it is difficult to explain how this happened.

‘Oxlade-Chamberlain is very disappointed. How can can it happen if you lose a ball 70 metres away from goal?’ Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim said: ‘Football is an art, defending and attacking. It is difficult to score a lot of goals in the Champions League, but we were able to take advantage of the space Arsenal gave us.

‘Berbatov played a terrific match in terms of his positional play, he was our first target when we tried to build our play. He had a great game.’

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Frenchman determined to put aside connection he feels to Monaco where he spent seven seasons in charge – at the 'crazy' club that 'gave me a chance'

After 1,485 games, 32 years, 12 trophies, five clubs, three countries, two continents and one relegation, it is rare for Arsène Wenger to be confronted with a new experience in his coaching career. Tonight, though, fate has conspired to present him with a first competitive fixture against a former club. It is not just any ex-employer, either.

While it sometimes feels like Wenger has been at Arsenal for a lifetime, his seven seasons at AS Monaco actually also make him the longest serving post-war manager of Tuesday night's Champions Leaguevisitors to the Emirates Stadium.

Wenger yesterday described Monaco as the “crazy” club that “gave me a chance” even if ultimately they were also the club that blocked a dream move to Bayern Munich and still sacked him several weeks later.

In-between, there was a French league title, a French Cup, a European final and a Champions League semi-final, all achieved in an era that became stained by the stench of Monaco’s fiercest rivals, Olympique Marseille, being found to have bribed opposition players.

Wenger said yesterday that the Monaco experience, notably being sacked, had only strengthened him. He looked almost offended by the suggestion that he would pause to feel any nostalgia tonight.

“I am competitive and, as much as I respect Monaco, I am focused on my job,” he said. “If I play against my brother it’s the same. I give my best. Our job is all about tomorrow. I have never stopped working. I have never had the time to reflect.”

After about 20 minutes of cajoling at Arsenal’s training ground yesterday lunchtime, Wenger did finally relent and it was obvious that the Monaco experience remains vividly imprinted on his mind.

He said that “without doubt” he would feel more emotional when he returns to the Côte d’Azur next month. He also acknowledged that, for all his dedication both to Monaco and Arsenal, he has been deeply fortunate.

“They are the two clubs who have been crazy enough to let me work,” he said. “They had to be brave because it wasn’t obvious for Monaco to take me on or for Arsenal to employ me. In life you have to take you chance when you get your chance.”

Wenger was a promising 38-year-old manager at Nancy when he got that first big opportunity but, as fate would have it, the chance to manage Paris St-Germain came along at the same time.

His previous experience working for nearby Cannes with Richard Conte was instrumental in him choosing Monaco and they were soon near-neighbours in Villefranche-sur-Mer.

Conte, the Cannes general manager, recalled in Xavier Rivoire’s biography of Wenger how they would spend long evenings talking about nothing but football. Others remember how Wenger would spend almost every waking hour at Monaco’s ‘La Turbie’ mountain training base.

“All he had in his flat was a bed, a settee and his television,” one former colleague said. “It was always in a right state. He’d never attempt to keep it tidy. His office had video cassettes strewn around the floor.”

The dressing room was also gradually filled with outstanding players. Glenn Hoddle and Mark Hateley arrived from the UK. French greats including Lilian Thuram and Emmanuel Petit were developed. A world great in George Weah was unearthed.

Monaco became French champions in Wenger’s first season and would finish in the top three in the five subsequent years but Bernard Tapie’s Marseille generally beat them in their domestic head-to-head.

Wenger said yesterday that he had “strong, intelligent” players at Monaco but there were also lasting scars. The 1992 European Cup Winners’ Cup final against Werder Bremen became overshadowed by a tragedy on the eve of the match when and 18 fans died and a further 2,300 were injured when two stands collapsed during a French Cup match involving Marseille and Bastia.

“A haunting night,” Wenger said. “The night before I didn’t sleep. It was catastrophic.”

There was also what became known as the ‘Affair L’OM’. That also kept Wenger awake at night and, although there is only one proven case – relating to a match against Valenciennes in 1993 when Marseille offered three players bribes to “take their foot off the gas” – Wenger believes Monaco could have won two more championships in what he called “normal circumstances”.

The 1993-94 season ended with Monaco finishing outside the top three under Wenger for the first time. It was then that Bayern Munich made their move. Monaco resisted but Wenger was sacked after a poor start to the 1994-95 season.

Did he feel betrayed? “No. In my job you have to accept the rules of the games. I survived. It’s a good experience.”

Wenger has maintained links with Monaco and his advice has been sought over recent years on the owners’ current strategy.

After conceding costly, first-leg goals in four consecutive defeats at this stage of the Champions League, Wenger is especially conscious of Monaco’s counter-attacking threat. “Monaco is like a reptile,” he said. “They will wait for us, absorb our game, and try to kill us.”

Yet Wenger also clearly senses an opportunity. Monaco are not in the same elite category as Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munichwhile Arsenal are also a rather different proposition with the additions in the past two seasons of Alexis Sánchez, Mesut Özil and Danny Welbeck.

“I believe we are in a better shape – more belief,” he said. “As a team that we are on the way up and we can use the Champions League to confirm that. I look around Europe and there are 10 teams who believe they can win it.” Wenger clearly counts Arsenal among those.