Jose Mourinho warns Manchester United: In 15 days my players will be celebrating knocking out the champions

Jose Mourinho tried as hard as he could to remain diplomatic yesterday.

He didn't even look up for the first five minutes of the Inter Milan press conference.

His captain, Javier Zanetti, fielded questions while Mourinho flicked idly through the match programme with a sneer pinned to his face.

When it was came to his turn to speak, he made a point of saying how much respect he had for Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United. "I'll not speak in a negative way about them," he said. "Never. Never."

There was no way that was going to last. He kept the respect thing going for one answer but after that he just couldn't help himself. Let's face it, it was what everyone was expecting. An audience with the Special One simply wouldn't be the same without a decent bit of baiting.

So in the blink of an eye, Mourinho had turned tonight's clash of the giants in the San Siro into some kind of spaghetti western stare- down between two grim and silent gunfighters.

This was Gangs of New York stuff for Mourinho. It was a test, he said, to discover which team would avert its gaze and betray its principles when it was fighting for its life.

United, he said, would not have the courage to play their usual brand of attacking football against his runaway Serie A leaders. "They will not play eye-to-eye," he said.

Never mind that Inter have not won the European Cup since 1965 and that the drought has become an obsession that has crushed generations of Inter players since and may damn Mourinho, too, if he cannot find a way past United. It was Ferguson's team who would blink first, he said. To underline his confidence, he told us his formation and who would play in midfield and up front.

"We will play 4-4-2 with Adriano and Ibrahimovic in attack," Mourinho said. "Then Zanetti, Cambiasso, Stankovic and Muntari in a diamond in midfield and four at the back.

"We'll play basically the same way we play in our championship. We've no fear to admit this is the way it will be.

"But I have many, many doubts they will come here and play the same way they do in the Premier League with Rooney, Ronaldo, Berbatov and Tevez all together. I've many, many doubts about that. We'll not see all of them. They won't come here with the same attacking approach. They will change more than us.

"I'm sure Carrick, Scholes, Giggs, Park and the more defensive players will all play. I don't think that they come here to play eye-to-eye and win the tie at the San Siro."

It may come as a surprise to Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs to learn they are defensive players but it suited Mourinho yesterday to goad United.

He knows if United stay calm and focused and Ferguson avoids tactical errors, the English league leaders should be too strong for them.

Inter are nine points clear in Serie A but that is less an indication of excellence than a sign Italian domestic football is in sharp decline.

Inter are well marshalled and, in Zlatan Ibrahimovic, have a striker many rank as one of the best in the world despite him being infuriatingly inconsistent.

But they are essentially an ordinary side, devoid of creativity, reliant on organisation and muscularity and occasional sparks of inspiration from Ibrahimovic and his overweight strike partner, Adriano.

That's why Mourinho had to tread the route he followed yesterday and why Ferguson felt able to brush away Mourinho's barbs when they were put to him last night.

Mourinho needs to find an edge from somewhere and appears to be trying to get it by prodding United into a cavalier approach.

It is unlikely to work because Ferguson has proved himself to be cautious when United are away from home in the knockout stages of the Champions League.

Mourinho, though, is doing his best to convince himself and his players this tie will mark a triumph of the will for them.

He spoke for more than an hour yesterday, lecturing Italian journalists on how the past might belong to city rivals AC Milan but that the present and the future belonged to Inter.

And he mentioned how the Porto side he managed knocked United out of the Champions League in 2004. "No one would have bet a euro on that Porto team," he said, leaving it unsaid that Inter, too, are big underdogs.

"We have to go into this tie not afraid of the possibility that in 15 days Inter will be out of the Champions League.

"Instead we will go into the tie thinking that in 15 days we can probably celebrate the fact we have just beaten the European champions."

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