Southampton achieved a resounding surprise on Wednesday by eliminating Manchester City from the quarter-finals of the English Football League Cup, by defeating its guest 2-0 at St Mary’s Stadium.
Frenchman Seko Mara (23) and Malian Moussa Djenepo scored with a wonderful shot (28) the visitors’ goals in a match in which City did not hit any ball on goal.
Southampton thus ended City’s hopes with a possible quadruple in the season, as the English champion is still competing for the league title and is five points behind leaders Arsenal.
On Wednesday, Nottingham Forest also qualified by winning a penalty shootout 4-3 at home to Wolverhampton following the end of normal time 1-1, with goals from Ivory Coast Willy Boly for the owners of the land (18) and Mexican Raul Jimenez for the guests (64).
Southampton and Nottingham completed the golden square following they caught up with Manchester United and Newcastle, who qualified on Tuesday.
City entered the match following two consecutive victories over Chelsea, the first in the league 1-0 in the middle of last week, and the second by 4-0 at the end of it, to cross to the fourth round of the FA Cup.
While the coaches relax their key players in the League Cup competitions, City is also awaiting an expected test once morest United, its recently resurgent rival, away from home in the Manchester derby in the League on Saturday, so Spaniard Pep Guardiola kept the Norwegian top scorer Erling Haaland and playmaker Kevin De Bruyne on the bench. Portuguese Bernardo Silva and Algerian Riyad Mahrez.
Southampton scored the first goal when the Brazilian Lianko snatched the ball from the middle of the field and set off on the right side, before raising a cross that Mara followed low on the beautiful bird in the bottom corner to the left of German goalkeeper Stefan Ortega (23).
The “Saints” team doubled its lead with a wonderful goal when Djenepo noticed the goalkeeper’s progress on his own goal, and he hit a curved ball from regarding 25 meters in the middle of the net (28).
With the start of the second half, Guardiola threw in De Bruyne, Dutch defenders Nathan Ake and Swiss Manuel Akanji (46), before Haaland entered instead of Jack Grealish following 10 minutes (56).
He also pushed Spaniard Rodri later, but that did not work for City, who won the title of this competition 8 times, including four in a row between 2018 and 2021.