No manager has won the Carabao Cup more often than Pep Guardiola but, as he bounced into the press room at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after a frantic 2-1 defeat on Wednesday night, he didn’t seem particularly upset that he won’t have the chance to get his hands on it again.
City have now lost four of their last eight games in England’s second cup competition — having won 23 of the previous 24 — but the result of this game never really felt like the most important thing.
Guardiola declared he would not “waste energy” on this tie over a month ago, and pleaded with the footballing gods to protect his team from injuries just this week. With knocks to both Manuel Akanji and Savinho against Spurs, it was a request that fell on deaf ears.
City fans have a unique relationship with this tournament, and cup football more generally. It was a euphoric victory over Stoke City in the 2011 FA Cup final that kick-started their glittering new era, while four consecutive Carabao Cup titles between 2018 and 2021 was as fun and as bizarre as following club football can get.
But it’s hard to shake the feeling that as the football calendar continues to swell, these fixtures are becoming a nuisance for Guardiola; and that says as much about the stature of the English cups as it does about City themselves.
In the context of an injury-hit season, there was a sense of dread surrounding this trip to Tottenham.
In the end, a loss has hardly altered the mood — it has actually cleared a few valuable days from a rapidly bloating schedule — but fresh injury concerns have inflicted even more damage upon an already thin squad.
This was the fourth of seven games in the space of 20 days for Guardiola’s side, while Savinho’s knock was the fourth injury they have picked up in that run. And although the manager did not overtly express his displeasure at losing more players after the game, the subtext — talking about “fighting”, “courage” and “pain” — was fairly straightforward to read.
Not just within the management team, it feels as if a lot has changed since City last really embraced or even enjoyed playing in this competition.
This is a club with bigger fish to fry, and while it’s hard to disagree with Guardiola’s decision to treat this competition differently, there is something unusual — from a fan perspective at least — about supporting a team with loftier, long-term aims in mind, particularly during a game where it feels as if a defeat wouldn’t be the worst way for it to end.
For years, this was a competition that provided City with the immediate joy that football fans crave. There were moments that didn’t really make sense — the 9-0 win over Burton Albion, Fernandinho’s sensational volley at Old Trafford, the fourth final in 2021 as Guardiola went head-to-head with Ryan Mason at a half-empty Wembley Stadium — and others, from Vincent Kompany’s goal in the final against Arsenal to Phil Foden’s first for the club against Oxford, that will live even longer in the memory.
Carabao almost became an inside joke, as fans formed an ironic bond with the far-flung sponsor of a competition that they couldn’t stop winning. It was silly and it was reckless, but it was much more of a thrill when the consequences didn’t really have to be considered. Now, with the cups squashed between even more games, it’s difficult not to think of the bigger picture.
Guardiola’s cautiousness was vindicated as injuries struck again, and he admitted afterwards that he was never going to risk Erling Haaland in such a game.
He made six changes to his starting line-up from the weekend’s win against Southampton, and swapped nine players from the previous round against Watford. The numbers across his City career show that Guardiola averages 6.8 line-up tweaks for Carabao Cup games, compared to around 4.3 for those in the Champions League.
These games are dangerous for City’s wider ambitions, no matter how fun they used to be.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom in North London. For while a defeat put an end to a 13-game unbeaten streak, there were plenty of enjoyable moments throughout.
The Carabao Cup allowed City debuts for Foden, Cole Palmer, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Liam Delap and Tommy Doyle, all now regular starters across the Premier League. Kaden Braithwaite made his competitive bow in the last round, while Nico O’Reilly, Jacob Wright and Jahmai Simpson-Pusey all made appearances last night.
“This competition is really good to use the academy players,” Guardiola beamed afterwards. “Nico played like the Nico we met in pre-season, Jacob was really good, and Jahmai was exceptional in the minutes he played as a central defender. And James McAtee: wow, what a game he played.”
The game itself was open, too, and while Savinho’s injury was a brutal end to another dynamic display, Matheus Nunes nailed another audition down the left-hand side, steaming past Archie Gray on a number of occasions, before acrobatically volleying home a well-deserved goal just before the break.
It’s another early exit from a competition that City used to enjoy a lot more than they currently do, but maybe it’s a sacrifice that needs to be made.
(Top photo: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
