Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho got it wrong... the Carabao Cup is worth winning

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Given Jose Mourinho's affinity with the League Cup it is surprising to hear him say that English football could be better off without it. It is also very hard to agree.

The competition was the first one Mourinho won in England, with Chelsea in 2005. Last year it became his first trophy with United, too. 

After winning the Europa League in May, he encouraged his players to hold up three fingers — one for each trophy won.

Jose Mourinho has suggested English football might be better off without the League Cup

So we can presume it has mattered to Mourinho in the past and we hope it will continue to matter now.

It seems that every season we have this debate. The early rounds of what we now call the Carabao Cup always feature under-strength teams, strange results and, inevitably, a whiff of apathy. From that point of view, this season is no different.

But nor, I suspect, will things be different once we head deep into winter. For those clubs which remain for the quarter-finals and beyond, the competition will become very important indeed.

Manchester United won the League Cup last season along with the Europa League

Mourinho asked on Wednesday: 'Could English football be better without this competition? Maybe we would be fresher for European competitions.'

It wouldn't really. Allowing next week's Champions League participants to play their Premier League games on Friday night or Saturday lunchtime would. But that is a different point. And Mourinho's is a narrow argument anyway. 

There are 92 clubs in the professional pyramid and only seven of them are playing in Europe this season. Should we really scrap — or radically amend — a competition that has become part of the game's structure for 57 years just so that United, Chelsea, Liverpool and the rest can concentrate on European matches that matter to them and only them? Of course we should not.

The League Cup was the first trophy the Portuguese boss won when he came to England

The big Premier League clubs should have big enough squads to cope with four competitions. If they don't, they haven't got their recruitment and academy structures right. And if they wish to play under-strength teams early in the Carabao Cup, so be it.

What is more surprising is that some of the smaller Premier League clubs choose to do the same.

If we presume that clubs like Burnley, Stoke and even Everton cannot win the Premier League, it is puzzling that they don't focus more intently on trying to win a competition that some of those above them in the league do not care so much about.

Sean Dyche's Burnley were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Leeds United on Tuesday

Talk of prioritising the league is bogus. It's only September. Cup finals are, to some extent, what football is about, even now.

Attendances around the country suggested this week that the public have not fallen out of love with the EFL's flagship competition.

Over the years, the League Cup has been trimmed — endless replays do nothing for anyone. But it has been squeezed enough.

Now is not the time to question further the legitimacy of this competition. It is actually time to do the opposite and put a fence around it.