Manchester City Draw Burton Albion in Carabao Cup Semi Final

Manchester City progressed to the Carabao Cup Semi Finals by beating Leicester City on penalties on Tuesday evening.

This was the second time in successive years Manchester City have beaten Leicester at the same stage of this competition on penalties. It’s the third time we have beaten Leicester en route to the League Cup Final so all the omens are looking good.

But of course this is City and we have never retained a trophy we have ever won. As the current League Cup holders, the signs are not looking good. If we are to win the trophy again this year then Pep Guardiola will be the first ever Manchester City Manager to retain a trophy.

City have been rewarded for beating Leicester City by being drawn against what many pundits consider to be the easiest team left in the competition – Burton Albion. But as I said before, we are Manchester City and we have an uncanny knack of unleashing “typical City” at crucial moments, such as when we lost to Wigan in the FA Cup Final, or indeed when we lost to Wigan last season!

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So it is probably safer to view Burton Albion as a potential banana skin rather than an easy right of passage. Burton currently sit in 15th place in League One, which indicates they have done extremely well to reach the semi final. On their way so far they have managed to beat some good sides – Burnley, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough – so it would seem they have the capacity to gain a result against what is likely to be a depleted City side.

Given our history of typical City, and the fact this game is being squeezed into a busy fixture schedule, there will be a lot of pressure on Guardiola to rotate his playing squad. But the plea from us City fans is for Guardiola to afford both the competition and the opponents sufficient respect and to pick his best available players.

The first leg will be played at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday 9 January 2019, kicking off at 19;45. This will be just 3 days after the FA Cup game at the Etihad against Rotherham on Sunday 6 January 2019. Manchester City will now play 4 home games in the first 14 days of January which will test the depth of the City fans pockets just after Christmas.