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CARDIFF - Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho said it was a pity his side's League Cup soccer triumph over Arsenal had been marred by a mass melee among players in the last 10 minutes today.
The English champions lifted the first trophy of the season with a 2-1 win
over Arsene Wenger's young side in a gripping game full of incident at the Millennium Stadium.
"It was a pity because it was a final and it was a good game," Mourinho said.
"Some boys maybe lost a bit of hold of their emotions. I hope we all can forget this incident and we can focus on the good things of the game."
Chelsea's 19-year-old Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel, who had come on for injured captain John Terry, and Arsenal's Kolo Toure of Ivory Coast and Emmanuel Adebayor of Togo were sent off after a brawl following the second of Didier Drogba's two goals.
Nerves had been frayed by what appeared to be a serious injury to Chelsea and England captain John Terry who lost consciousness, was carried off on a stretcher and taken to hospital with a head injury.
The defender later returned to the stadium and was able to congratulate his team mates.
Wenger echoed Mourinho's sentiments.
"I think people will keep in a part of their brain that they have seen a very good football game," he said.
Mourinho said Arsenal, who scored first through 17-year-old Theo Walcott, had had the best of the first half.
"To be 1-1 at halftime was good for us because they were better in the first half. The second half .... we hit the post twice and when we scored it was almost over."
Mourinho and Wenger rushed on to the pitch when the melee broke out and said they had wanted to calm their players.
The Portuguese coach said he could not blame the players too much because both he and his Arsenal counterpart had been guilty in the past of losing their cool.
On Mikel he said: "If he has done something wrong it is not for me to kill him but to educate him."
Wenger said he had stuck to his young side, without big names such as Thierry Henry and William Gallas, throughout the cup run, beating Liverpool, Everton and Tottenham Hotspur and he did not regret playing them on Monday.
"There is a great spirit in the squad. If we had kept our calm we had the resources to come back -- we could have come back to 2-2," Wenger said.
"It is a learning process for them. I feel this team is aggressive in a positive way but they have to learn to keep it under control."
Wenger said he regretted his team had not taken first-half chances to kill off the game and lamented what he considered bad decisions by referee Howard Webb. He thought Drogba's first goal was offside and that a move by Adebayor had been wrongly adjudged offside. "It's a trophy lost but we are still full of hopes. We have still a good chance in the FA Cup and in the Champions League," he said. "We have to show mental strength."
Chelsea are also chasing both those trophies as well as a third English championship in a row, though Manchester United moved nine points clear on Sunday with Chelsea otherwise occupied.
- REUTERS