Sure, City aren’t going to win the League Cup, or even make the last four/eight/whatever – and most of us would probably swap a victory at Brentford for one in the League. However, there’s a fortnight’s rest after this weekend’s game, and with a number of new attacking signings whose potential is clear but who looked on Saturday to be a little badly in need of time to grow accustomed to each other, this is surely the perfect chance to unleash Koren, Bostock and Simpson?
Happily, it appears that the people in charge agree. City’s new assistant manager Craig Shakespeare is quoted as saying that the “strongest available team” will be picked and that a full squad is travelling to London. Now, that does contain an obvious caveat. No-one with even the faintest degree of unfitness will be risked, which is likely to rule out Kamil Zayatte, who emerged from Saturday’s game with a knock to the knee. However, it’s instructive to see what Leicester did under Nigel Pearson last season: seven of the side that started the League match immediately prior to a First Round assignment in this competition were selected. By contrast, Phil Brown made eleven changes at the Second Round stage last season.
But we’ll see. City’s record in the League Cup in recent years is dismal. We haven’t made the fourth round of the competition since 1977/8, when Arsenal knocked the Tigers out at Highbury. The competition did bring some brief respite in the darker days of the 1990s, with victory over (then) Premier League) Crystal Palace for Mark Hateley’s Fourth Division Tigers bringing a trip to (then quite good) Newcastle, before a visit to Anfield. Since then however, it’s been a short-lived chore for City.
The Fourth Round also represents Brentford’s best ever achievement in the competition, some 28 years ago, and this is their first Second Round appearance in four seasons. Quite how seriously they’ll be approaching the game is unclear. They’ve had a disappointing start in the third tier, taking just one point from three games, and could do with the confidence boost that victory over higher division opposition. They’ll probably be without Carl Cort and Sam Wood, though ex-Tigers Gary Alexander and Nicky Forster may feature.
The last time City travelled to Griffin Park was when Peter Taylor’s already-promoted Tigers lost 2-1 at the end of the 2004/5 season; the time before was that memorable day when City won 2-0 against the eventual champions to finally lift themselves off the foot of the Fourth Division table – “we are 91st!” – in the Great Escape. You’d like think a similar outcome will be on the cards tonight if City really are taking the game seriously.
