Valencia: You give 100% when wearing the United shirt

Ahead of Sunday’s League Cup final between Manchester United and Southampton, Antonio Valencia has claimed he will give everything he has to lift the trophy for the team

I’m 100 per cent up for it! You can never be just at 30 per cent. When you pull on the United shirt you have to be 100 per cent focused and ready. It’s all about being totally concentrated. In such an important game as a final, you really need to be mentally strong and fully focused on the game, even more so when it’s at a fantastic stadium like Wembley, with all its history. Let’s hope that’s how it is in this final and we’re all concentrating on our jobs and we can manage to win the cup.

We have to put all the build-up, photos and interviews completely out of our minds, and focus on the task in hand. We’ve got a trophy up for grabs here and know just how important that is for the supporters. We can’t approach the game in a relaxed mood; we have to go out, put in a shift and fight hard, and hope that throughout the 90 minutes, we’re in control of the game and can eventually lift the cup

This will be United’s fourth visit in 10 months, having won the previous three, but Valencia says we need to put the FA Cup and Community Shield games out of our minds.

We have to forget about the fact that we might have won there three, four or five times. We have to put that to one side. This is another final, and a totally different story. We cannot afford to make one single mistake, this is a final and we cannot lose our concentration for even one minute.

It’s a stadium which really is just made for playing football and enjoying it at the same time. Let’s hope then that we won’t be disappointed, and that we can play with a smile on our faces and with total commitment.

Winning the cup could give us even more impetus, as we’re already pretty high on confidence. It’s a big thing for us, there are around 15 games left in the Premier League and anything can still happen. While we have a chance mathematically, we’ll carry on battling to try and win the title.