No ordinary Jose: Chelsea look to the history man

He's already being called the Portuguese man of four as the sense of a changing order is heightened

Jose Mourinho looked a tad underwhelmed by the surprise presentation to him of a Carling Cup birthday cake after Chelsea's triumph at Old Trafford on Wednesday night, and with good reason. The calorie-controlled manager is expecting the third-ranked (some say third-rate) competition in English football to provide no more than the icing on his stunning debut season.

Jose Mourinho looked a tad underwhelmed by the surprise presentation to him of a Carling Cup birthday cake after Chelsea's triumph at Old Trafford on Wednesday night, and with good reason. The calorie-controlled manager is expecting the third-ranked (some say third-rate) competition in English football to provide no more than the icing on his stunning debut season.

Only Rafael Benitez's stuttering Liverpool can deny him the League Cup; beating Birmingham City at Stamford Bridge this afternoon would ensure a place in the last 16 of the more prestigious domestic cup competition; in the Premiership, Chelsea are luxuriating on a deep, 10-point cushion; and other than sheer fatigue, Barcelona at home and away in the Champions' League represent the greatest deterrent to an achievement so monumental that Sir Alex Ferguson has bluntly derided it as "impossible".

Taken aback by some premature criticism of his methods and perceived arrogance in the campaign's formative weeks, Mourinho is erring towards caution in his public utterances on the subject these days. He even remained seated in his dug-out as the triumphalist visiting thousands mocked their hosts on Wednesday with "Stand up if you've won the League". Not for 50 years they haven't, of course, but it is surely now just a matter of time, and of how many other baubles can be added to the one Mourinho values most.

"We can win four, we can lose four" was his initial assessment soon after the final whistle. But by the time of the last debriefing as Thursday morning drew closer, the sheer unlikelihood of the latter possibility was being acknowledged. "I think we have to win something," he argued, using "have to" in the sense of "are bound to". "First of all because we deserve it. You can't be so unlucky that when you're doing as fantastic a job as our guys are doing, they lose against Liverpool, lose against Birmingham, lose a 10-point gap and are out of the Champions' League. I don't believe this, so I think we must get some, how d'you say, silverware."

The word will be a more familiar part of his English vocabulary before long, and rivals for those principal trophies must now begin to fear a significant reduction in their chances of laying hands on them in the near future. The end of an era is best defined with hindsight, and by something less haphazard than a 50-yard free-kick bouncing past a startled goalkeeper; but on Wednesday it was difficult not to feel a sense of a changing order.

A similar feeling had been hinted at in similar circumstances last year, when Chelsea won by the same score at Highbury to eliminate Arsenal from the Champions' League, only for it to prove premature. Now, most of United's key players are a goal down to Father Time - an opponent who rarely allows a comeback - and Arsenal's much younger squad are still learning.

Meanwhile, Mourinho, taking over from the less grounded Claudio Ranieri, has the look of a history man about him, and the only question will concern precisely how much history he makes. Leaving others to claim that a new dynasty is being founded, he even suggested there may be challenges to Chelsea from outside north London and Manchester: "You have the reputation [in England] that every competition is hard, everybody can beat everybody. If we can do it this season and Rafa has time to build a better Liverpool and [Graeme] Souness has time to build a better Newcastle and so on, you can have an even better competition."

Unfazed by Friday's charge for rashly using the word "cheat" of some United players in the first semi-final, Mourinho seems genuinely pleased that Liverpool and Benitez will provide the opposition in Cardiff: "It's fantastic for Rafa because he had a difficult week and now he's in the final. It's not easy for managers to adapt to a new country. Liverpool is Liverpool, and Liverpool is history, so it's a fantastic final for the clubs, for the pros like we are and for the supporters."

Not to mention the sponsors, and the Football League, who must be purring at the success this season of a competition felt in many quarters to be an irrelevant nuisance. The attendances at Old Trafford in the last two rounds, against Arsenal and then Chelsea, have been the highest, apart from finals, in the competition's 45-year history.

The final itself, on Sunday 27 February, will have a rather higher profile than last season's between Bolton and Middlesbrough and should, like this week's matches, be contested by something close to full-strength sides, allowing for the exertions a few days earlier of Champions' League games against Barcelona and Bayer Leverkusen respectively. Chelsea have beaten Liverpool twice already this season, by a single Joe Cole goal each time, though the most crucial blow in either game was the uncharacteristically bad tackle by Frank Lampard at Anfield that broke Xabi Alonso's ankle, disabling him for the rest of the season.

Alonso, fluent and creative in the centre of the pitch but strong as well, had looked much the best of the countrymen Benitez had imported. Now another has arrived, and Mourinho believes the opposition will be all the stronger by the end of next month: "When we went to Liverpool they had no [Fernando] Morientes, and [Milan] Baros was injured. In one month's time, maybe they have both and will have a lot of power. And of course there is Steven [Gerrard - note the first-name terms] and a good defensive organisation."

Maybe, too, Benitez will have decided how best to align his troops; specifically, whether to stick with the fashionable system of 4-5-1 mutating into 4-3-3, which suits Chelsea and their exciting wingers well, but looked no better than dour in Liverpool's games against Championship opponents at Burnley and Watford. It certainly does not bring the best out of Baros, who was often a forlorn figure ploughing up and down the Saracens rugby pitch at Vicarage Road.

Calling the defensive organisation "good" was generous in the light of Mauricio Pellegrino's first two performances for the club alongside initially the equally sluggish Sami Hyypia and then Jamie Carragher. "It's difficult, the high intensity of the game and the different refereeing," Pellegrino admitted of his settling-in period, while Morientes has said: "English football is very aggressive, physical, and there are a lot of high balls played. Tackles that would be fouls in Spain are not fouls here."

Mourinho, typically, knew exactly what to expect and, admit it publicly or not, his expectations for the next four months are great ones. Do not be surprised that this extraordinary man, and manager, wants to have his cake and eat it.

The Roman Way

Where Chelsea score over Arsenal and Man United

Steve Tongue

Financial backing

Arriving like a deus ex machina just as Chelsea faced financial disaster, Roman Abramovich transformed the face of English football. But Man Utd regard investors Malcolm Glazer, J P McManus and John Magnier as unacceptable faces, while patriarchal Arsenal are hamstrung until the move to Ashburton Grove generates new income streams.

Managerial nous

It still takes the right person to spend the millions. Claudio Ranieri was hit-and-miss (Claude Makelele and Frank Lampard, but also Juan Sebastian Veron and Hernan Crespo); Jose Mourinho has a defter touch in buying players and, crucially, shaping them into a team. Respect to Sir Alex and Arsène for their achievements, but after seven months the new boy in town has proved his class.

Strength in depth

There is a case to be argued that the first XI of United and Arsenal, fit and on top form, could match Chelsea's; games on those occasions this season have all been close. The substitutes' benches tell a different tale. Exeter City are unlikely to have drawn an FA Cup tie against Arsenal's second strings, let alone Chelsea's.

Team spirit

The difficulty with 22 top players is keeping them all happy, vast pay-packets or not. Chelsea's musketeer spirit was illustrated in the way squad members jumped all over each other after the final whistle at Old Trafford. Compare Carlo Cudicini, hanging on at the Bridge though he rarely gets a game, with the Brazilian Edu, badly needed to help Arsenal's midfield babes but determined to leave.

The goalkeepers

Cudicini would have suited 19 Premiership clubs but Chelsea went out and found someone even better in Petr Cech. Maybe he will make a mistake one of these months, but in the meantime Arsenal and United have to keep searching for the true heirs to David Seaman and Peter Schmeichel.