Southampton qualified for the English Football League Cup semi-finals, by defeating its guest Manchester City 2-0 at St Mary’s Stadium.
Sharjah 24 – Asaad Khalil:
Southampton achieved a resounding surprise 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 Mali’s Moussa Djenebko 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 trailing leaders Arsenal by 5 points.
Nottingham Forest also qualified by winning a penalty shootout 4-3 at home to Wolverhampton after the end of the regular time 1-1, with goals from Ivory Coast Willy Boly for the hosts (18) and Mexican Raul Jimenez for the guests (64).
Southampton and Nottingham completed the golden square after they caught up with Manchester United and Newcastle, who qualified on Tuesday.
City entered the match after 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 into 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 against 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 about 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 after 10 minutes (56).
He also pushed the Spaniard Rodri later, but that did not work for City, who won the title of this competition 8 times, including 4 in a row between 2018 and 2021.