Under-pressure Mourinho’s paranoia livens up League Cup final between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur

Harry Kane's wide-eyed enthusiasm and Diego Costa's pragmatism provide a study in contrasts, writes Jonathan Wilson

Chelsea's Diego Costa celebrates scoring. Darren Walsh / AP Images

Sometimes the League Cup final turns up almost unnoticed and passes almost without ­comment.

This time, though, with Jose Mourinho having raised the barricades, spouting even more nonsense than usual about conspiracies, the build-up to Sunday's fixture has been ­sulphurous.

The Chelsea manager’s brooding has turned this into a final that really matters.

Ten years ago, it was the League Cup that gave him his first silverware in English football, a win that only took on greater significance as trophy followed trophy.

It relieved some of the pressure on him and, to use Brian Clough’s phrase, got his player’s used to the taste of victory.

Things seem far more settled at Chelsea now, but perhaps Mourinho’s recent antics are an indication that, midway through his second season and with his side’s form just beginning to stutter – even if they are five points clear in the league – he is beginning to feel the ­pressure.

Mourinho's claim this week was that the three-match ban given to Nemanja Matic for shoving over Ashley Barnes had harmed the "credibility and respect" of English football, an assertion so brazen it is hard not to be slightly impressed.

What has damaged the credibility of English football is that it was reduced to two matches on appeal. Violent conduct is violent conduct, no matter the provocation, and that brings a mandatory three-match ban.

The reduction essentially permits vigilantism. Players are effectively being told that if they feel they have been the victim of a bad foul, the authorities will take a lenient view if they go seeking retribution.

The Matic incident came after Diego Costa had been banned for three games for a stamp on Liverpool's Emre Can, something that Mourinho blamed on television for replaying the incident. Presumably, just as Sepp Blatter blamed journalists for reporting on the violence at the African Cup of Nations semi-final, Mourinho felt they should have ben showing footage of a princess getting married.

Costa admitted that his growing reputation for mastery of the dark arts has enforced a subtle change in his game.

“I’m not going to change my way of playing,” he said. “I do know now that I have to be a little bit more careful because it’s not the same when I do something or when someone else does it.

“Something I do, it’s talked about much more than another player. I have to be extra careful, but I’m never going to change the way I play. That’s what got me here, that’s the way I play.”

He has not scored in four games, and Mourinho has acknowledged Costa’s form is not what it was before his ­suspension.

“After last season, I had a few injuries and when I was on top form, when I was at my best, I had that suspension that I still don’t even know why it happened,” Costa said.

“Now, I’m running a little bit behind, trying to do my best, working hard and hopefully I’ll be 100 per cent.”

He insisted his goal drought – and his failure to score for Chelsea in any tournament other than the league – did not bother him.

“The truth is I didn’t even know how many games it was,” he said. “It doesn’t worry me. What worries me is to be in the best physical form to score goals.

“I don’t pick tournaments to score, or rivals or other teams to score against. I’m a striker, every game I play I want to score. If it hasn’t happened in the cup, I’m hoping to God it happens on Sunday.”

If Costa was the best striker of the first half of the season, so Tottenham Hotspur's Harry Kane has been the best striker of the second.

He will be making his first senior appearance at Wembley, where he watched Spurs win the 2008 final against the same ­opponents.

“I was there watching Spurs beat Chelsea on the big stage and winning trophies,” he said. “It was something I grew up dreaming of doing and now I have the opportunity.”

The contrast between his wide-eyed excitement and the pragmatism of Mourinho and Chelsea is perhaps too easy a point to make, yet there is substance too it, if only because of the respective standings of the two clubs.

“I joined a club like Chelsea to win titles,” Costa said. “As we say, finals are not to play them, they are to win them. I’m hoping I can get my first title with Chelsea.”

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