Manchester City face a tough Carabao Cup semi-final as they travel to holders Newcastle in the first leg. City go into the match on the back of an incredible 10-1 thrashing of Exeter City in the FA Cup at the weekend and the last time they recorded that scoreline in 1987, they went on to win the following midweek cup match 6-2 against Plymouth Argyle.
Newcastle United of 2026 will pose far greater problems that Plymouth in 1987, but City will be riding high after such a win and will be full of confidence
going into the match at St James’s Park.
The Magpies are a bit hit and miss at the moment. Since beating City 2-1 in November, they lost in the Champions League, and won at Everton to end the month. December saw them play eight matches, winning three, including a 2-1 win over Fulham to set up the meeting with City. They lost to Sunderland and Manchester United whilst drawing with Spurs, Bayer Leverkusen and Chelsea.
January has started with successive Premier League wins over Crystal Palace (2-0) and Leeds United (4-3), and also an FA Cup victory over Bournemouth, thanks to a 7-6 win on penalties. After recording their win over the Blues in December, Newcastle will be looking to emulate that performance, which inflicted City’s fourth Premier League defeat of the season.
It will be an interesting yet tense game, with Newcastle wanting to take a lead to the Etihad Stadium for the second leg, and the Blues wanting to avoid that very scenario and taking the same.
As usual, our team are here to give us their views and predictions on the match. Here’s what we think this week:
Thomas
City are back to winning after rudely dispatching Exeter City from The FA Cup. Now it’s on to the 1st leg of the League Cup Semis. Newcastle away will be our first look at new man Semenyo against representative competition. A draw away will do, but I’ll take a narrow City win.
NUFC 1-2 City
Will
Newcastle’s home atmosphere is incredible and a draw out of this game would be a good result to set us up for the second leg. A win is very much in City’s grasp, but I think the scores will be even.
Newcastle 2-2 City
Pete
Yeah we lost in November but I’m fancying City to do the job in the North East and take a lead back to Manchester.
Newcastle 1-3 City
What happened against Exeter
Haha, well, we thumped them, much to the derision of opposing supporters who were crying all weekend. Will went for a very conservative 3-1, Saul 4-1 and Thomas 5-0, while Pete went for 5-1.
No one got anywhere near that sort of result so just a solitary point for all.
Here’s the table:
