Manchester City are sitting pretty right now when it comes to achieving their first trophy of the season. They’ll head to Burton Albion in midweek for the second leg of their EFL Cup semi-final tie. They can truly coast into the final as they’re currently up 9-0 due to the extreme route we saw in the Manchester leg of this tie.
On the other side of the bracket, two teams with a whole lot of issues to worry about right now, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur will settle their semifinal tie on Thursday night. Spurs are dealing with some massive injury blows right now while Chelsea players have just been thrown under the bus by their own manager, and this time it wasn’t even Jose Mourinho doing it.
In other words, it looks like the EFL Cup is there for City’s taking.
The Bank’s Manchester City Starting XI (4-3-2-1) Prediction at Burton Albion
Striker: Gabriel Jesus
Wingers: Leroy Sane, Riyad Mahrez
Midfielders: Phil Foden, Ilkay Gundogan, David Silva
Defenders: Oleksandr Zinchenko, Philipe Sandler, Eric Garcia, Danilo
Goalkeeper: Arijanet Muric
And as a special bonus, here’s our best attempt at the potential starting lineup we might see from Burton Albion in this one:
Collins; Brayford, Buxton, Turner, Hutchinson; Wallace, Quinn, Templeton; Akins, Boyce, Harness.
Manchester City at Burton Albion EFL Cup semi-final (second leg) FYIs
Kickoff: Wednesday, January 23, 7:45 PM local, Pirelli Stadium
TV: Sky Sports Main Event
Injury Report, match preview, team news: go to this link
Pep Guardiola media conference: 1:30 pm on Tuesday 22 January. The embargoed section will be held until 10.30pm on Tuesday 22 January. Video and quotes coming tomorrow
Burton Recent form in EFL Cup: WWWWWL
Recent form (all competitions): DDWLLD
Man City Recent form in EFL Cup: WWWWWW
Recent form (all competitions): WWWWWW
Prediction: City 5, Burton 0
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.