Depth the key for Mourinho

Jose Mourinho praised the depth of his squad after Real Madrid’s 4-0 hammering of Ajax in the Champions League on Tuesday.

Mourinho took the opportunity to rest several of his stars for the match, but his faith in lesser lights such as Alvaro Arbeloa and Karim Benzema was repaid with goals from the pair in Amsterdam, along with a second half double from Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo.

The win also seals Real’s place at the top of Group G, and Mourinho was pleased that his whole squad was in good form heading into the knockout stages.

“I’m very happy with players such as Arbeloa, Benzema, (Raul) Albiol and Lass (Diarra), who don’t normally play and have responded magnificently,” Mourinho said.

“For me all the players are fundamental. Everyone is going to have their opportunity. The responses that they have given today have been very good. The players are ready for everything, and that makes me happy.”

Mourinho would not be drawn on the late dismissals of Xabi Alonso and Sergio Ramos, who both received their second yellow cards for time wasting late in the match.

“As for the cards recieved and quarrel on the pitch, you can react in different ways and those are nice stories to sell, but at the end the story is simple: it was a fantastic match with a fantastic score of 4-0 and I am happy with that,” Mourinho said.

“The red cards we picked up don’t matter hugely as we have already qualified ahead of the next game against Auxerre.”

“If Ramos and Alonso can’t play against Auxerre then there will be others, but we are not going to gift the game to the French. We want to win them all.”

Ajax boss Martin Jol said while it was disappointing to miss out on the knockout stages, the quality of their opposition was too great to overcome.

“That is always our aim (to make the last 16), and you could say we didn’t achieve that,” Jol said.

“But on the other hand to be realistic you have to look back and you played with the best team in Italy (fellow Group G side AC Milan) and probably the best team in Europe now, to be third in the group is probably the best we could do up until now.”

“The frustrating thing is that we could not cope with their quality.”