Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson dismissed the suggestion in his usual style.

After beating Spurs on penalties to win the English League Cup final on Sunday he was asked if United could complete a “quintuple” of trophies.

“It’s a media thing,” he shot back. “I’m not getting carried away with it. We’re keeping our feet on the ground.”

But with FIFA’s Club World Cup and the League Cup already in the trophy room and with the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup all realistic targets, it is not just a media thing. It’s a real possibility. Throw in the Community Shield and it becomes a sextuple. Or a “double treble” — which sounds good if you are winning it or even drinking it.

Former United striker Frank Stapleton is among many who think Ferguson has assembled the best squad United have ever had – and although they failed to break Spurs down in 120 goalless minutes at Wembley, they still had the nerve, guile and experience to ease to a 4-1 victory in the shootout.

Spurs manager Harry Redknapp believes they can do it too.

“They’ve got a big chance of winning the lot,” he said after the game, “They are the team to beat, the best in Europe and have a fantastic squad.”

The fact that United’s hero was current third-choice keeper Ben Foster highlights the strength in depth of the squad. He was voted man of the match and Ferguson has tipped him to become England’s No.1 keeper in the not too distant future.

Other youngsters like Darron Gibson and Danny Welbeck looked assured next to the likes of Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand.

It wasn’t a classic performance by any stretch of the imagination, but the hallmark of great teams is that they win things even when they are not at their best.

They have ready replacements in every position and with confidence sky-high and the defence virtually impregnable, it will take something very special to get the better of United over the coming weeks.

Or as Ferguson also said, a deflected shot off someone’s backside that could see them knocked out of the FA Cup at Fulham on Saturday.

Barring that, the race for the High Five is on. I think they have the strength, the players and the desire to do it. Do you?

PHOTO: Manchester United players celebrate winning the League Cup final against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley, March 1, 2009. REUTERS/Kieran Doherty

Twice UEFA Cup winners Tottenham Hotspur are most likely heading out of the competition after a 2-0 first-leg defeat at Shakhtar Donetsk in the first knockout round on Thursday.

The fact they fielded a ‘B’ team was not surprising. Manager Harry Redknapp had already stated several times that Premier League survival and the League Cup were his priorities. After the game Redknapp said: “I had a 17-year-old playing tonight and I will probably have four playing next week.”
 
The reason they will play with an under-strength team in the return leg next Thursday is that it comes three days after a crunch league match at Hull City and three days before their League Cup final against Manchester United.

Spurs have already lost to the Old Trafford side in the FA Cup fourth round after selecting a weakened team so it will be a welcome change for their fans that the starting lineup for the Wembley final will be the strongest they can muster.
 
The irony is that it was their surprise victory over Chelsea in last year’s League Cup final that got Spurs into the UEFA Cup in the first place. The delight that the supporters took in qualifying for a European campaign has been soured by the fact that it was not a priority to try to win the competition.

Fans spent their hard-earned money stumping up for tickets for the group stage matches only to find that the competition has almost turned into an irrelevance.
 
Of course, if Spurs were not struggling near the foot of the Premier League, cups would be more important but it is a sad indictment of the UEFA Cup’s standing that a team with a proud European history have had to relegate the competition to an irritant.

There will be a 48-team group stage in the competition next season when it is renamed the Europa League. I doubt Harry will be relishing the prospect.

For more blogs on other sports than soccer, check out http://blogs.reuters.com/sport

PHOTO: Shakhtar Donetsk’s Yevgen Seleznov scores against Tottenham Hotspur during their UEFA Cup match in Ukraine. Feb 19, 2009. REUTERS/Valery Belokryl

Real Madrid were knocked out of the King’s Cup by third-tier Real Union this week and Chelsea lost to second division Burnley in the Carling Cup, but which sides were really celebrating?

Chelsea would much rather concentrate on the Premier League while Real need to focus on the Champions League after two defeats.

In Italy, the Coppa Italia is fast becoming one of the biggest jokes in football. The last 16, the first round where the big clubs enter, has been spread across a two-month period for various strange reasons.

Wednesday’s game between Udinese and Reggina was played in mid-afternoon and from the television pictures I could not see a single fan in the stadium. There were probably a few die-hards behind the camera but they saw one of the most error-ridden games in history.

The Cup is realistically the only trophy Udinese and Reggina can win this season and yet even they played reserve sides. 

Top players were also rested in the other domestic cups this week, which surely diminishes the achievements of the smallers sides who cause ‘upsets’ and don’t gain as much revenue as they used to now that most competitions are no longer over two legs. 

Joe in his blog was very positive about the Carling Cup, and Arsenal’s youth side do play some wonderful stuff, but how many of that team will ever make it in the Premier League given that Arsenal’s first team is so young anyway?

The fact England has two cups has always baffled me. The FA Cup dwarves the Carling Cup and yet it too has suffered a credibility crisis in recent seasons. 

If we were to scrap all of Europe’s other domestic cups, my colleague Kevin has come up with the wonderful idea of keeping the world famous FA Cup and each year inviting different European powerhouses to play in it like Real and Barca or Milan and Juve.

So how about it, has the time come to bite the bullet and axe domestic cups which very few people care about?

PHOTO: Burnley players run in celebration as they defeat Chelsea in a penalty shoot-out in their Carling Cup match at Stamford Bridge, Nov. 12. REUTERS/Kieran Doherty

The League Cup came through a difficult birth and a forgettable youth to enjoy a long, proud middle age but the time has come for this doddery old relative to be shuffled off into retirement.

When it was launched in the early 1960s the new, midweek competition was pretty much ignored by the big clubs, as evidenced by Rotherham and Rochdale reaching the first two finals.

In 1966/67 the format was changed, the final switching from a two-legged affair to a one-off Wembley showcase, and with the subsequent additional carrot of a place in Europe for the winners, it eventually became a serious tournament.

Throughout the 1970s, 80s and early 90s a League Cup winners’ medal was something worth having and the idea of Liverpool, who won it four times in a row from 1981 while still managing to compete and win in Europe, fielding a weakened team in the competition would have been preposterous.

However, the arrival of the Premier and Champions Leagues and the associated money, meant it quickly lost its appeal for most of the top-flight clubs.

Current Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez changed all 11 players from the team who drew with Stoke in the league last weekend for Tuesday’s home game against Crewe, while Manchester United and Arsenal were not far behind.

Even the likes of Sunderland, Fulham and Stoke (for whom the League Cup provided their only major silverware in 1972) felt able to put out weak teams despite the fact that it is the only trophy they now have a realistic chance of winning.

It’s all very nice for Arsenal to field a side with an average age of 19, especially when they hammer Sheffield United 6-0 with a performance the envy of most clubs’ first teams, but it still undermines the credibility of the competition and makes the award of a UEFA Cup place for its winners laughable.

With the FA Cup showing signs of a similar decline, surely the time has come to cut off a limb to save the body and give up on England’s “third competition”.

I don’t hear too many people demanding a return of the European Cup Winners’ Cup.

PHOTO: Crewe Alexander’s Michael O’Connor scores against Liverpool during their League Cup match at Anfield, September 23, 2008. REUTERS/Nigel Roddis