Today's League Cup final changes all of that.

Few people know the Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur line-ups in advance.

And none of the experts agree to within seven or eight players from the bloated squads who will be on the pitch, in what formation and with what licence to attack.

The British press were trying to fathom the minds of the coaches, Chelsea's Avram Grant and Spurs' Juande Ramos.

The two were not employed as team managers in Britain six months ago. Grant, the Israeli, left the Portsmouth management to join Chelsea, ostensibly to help Jose Mourinho, last summer.

By September, Mourinho was paid to go away, and Grant was the new boss.

Ramos was coaching Spanish club Sevilla when the Spurs board went behind manager Martin Jol's back to entice the Spaniard.

Ramos arrived at White Hart Lane in October with a whole new management structure involving diet, double training and demands for an extra kilometre a match from the players.

If you tune in to the final, be prepared for the camera shots on the dugouts.

The commentators will tell you, no doubt, that Grant's father, a survivor of the Holocaust, is now 80 and attending his first Wembley final.

You will see Ramos alongside Gus Poyet, who acts as his interpreter and is his assistant coach.

On the benches with them will be doctors of sports science who claim to have whittled down the players' weight by a collective 100kg.

Ramos, apparently, decided they were overweight and behind the times. He needs athletes for the lightning breaks from full-back through midfield - on which he took Sevilla to the Champions League.

Grant did not have to work the Blues any harder than Mourinho had. But Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich, who has spent a billion dollars on the club, got tired of Mourinho's mouth and his dull way of winning matches.

As only an oligarch can do, he removed Mourinho and promoted the quiet Israeli.

We thought that was temporary, but Abramovich made it permanent by giving Grant a four-year contract.

The new coach has lost only two of 35 games with the old manager's squad of players, so maybe we must conclude that footballers will run for whoever is calling the shots.

Indeed, Grant spent another £14million (S$39 million) in the January transfer window to buy Nicolas Anelka. He needed the Frenchman because Didier Drogba was at the African Cup of Nations.

But now that DD is back, where does Anelka fit in, not to mention the forgotten Andriy Shevchenko?

Grant suggests the moody Frenchman and the single-minded Ivory Coast forward might play side by side. But that alters Chelsea's 4-3-3 formation, with a sole central striker flanked by two wingers.

Anelka has the pace and awareness to play wide right, but there again Grant is spoilt for choice with Joe Cole, Shaun Wright-Phillips and, sometimes, Salomon Kalou and Florent Malouda fighting for places on the wings.

And who should defend? Alex, the Brazilian, and Ricardo Carvalho, the Portuguese, have not lost together.

But John Terry, the captain, is available again after breaking bones all over his body.

Ashley Cole is the more gifted left-back, but his messy love life and frequent injuries make him less reliable than Wayne Bridge.

In midfield, Frank Lampard wants an end to rotation so that he plays every game as he used to under Mourinho. He, too, has come back from injury to find Michael Ballack commanding the playmaker's role.

So, Mr Grant, you have a nation of critics divided on who you should pick for your very first Cup final in England.

What do you wish to tell us?

'This is my life,' he answers with an enigmatic little smile.

'I like it, and I can't do without the pressure. I will be making these decisions every day for the next months, maybe the next years.'

Over at Camp Tottenham, similar uncertainties, but with a lesser squad, surrounds Ramos.

'I arrived to a depressed bunch of players who didn't believe in themselves,' he said. 'We needed a total transformation.'

He started by slimming down bodies and egos, before buying in January men who could stop the leakage of goals. Jonathan Woodgate, Alan Hutton, Gilberto (the Brazilian left-back), and Chris Gunter - all defenders - arrived.

Jermain Defoe, an attacker who could scarcely get a game because Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane are the first-choice partners, was sold.

The coach wanted more industry, more vigour in midfield. He gets it with Aaron Lennon's speed on the right and Steed Malbranque's competitive edge on the left.

And, in the central engine room, Jermaine Jenas runs from box to box while Tom Huddlestone, when selected, provides the passes.

'Before the manager came,' says Jenas, 'I was using my energy in the wrong areas. He simplified things. His philosophy is win, win, win.'

Strange that millionaire players need a change of manager to make them run to win.

But one potentially sad aspect to today's game is that it could be Ledley King's last performance.

Blessed with rare pace and calm authority, the central defender has a degenerative knee condition and a hip complaint. He spends more time under doctor's orders to rest.

He is 27. Tottenham are the only team he wanted to play for.

Keane, who skippers the side when King cannot, says if Spurs win the Cup, he will ask King to climb the steps and receive the trophy, whether or not he is fit to play.

stsports@sph.com.sg