The second leg of the EFL Cup semi final between Manchester City and Newcastle takes place on Wednesday and City have a 2-0 lead with this home leg to come.
Prices quoted are correct at the time of publication but subject to change.
Man City
City’s 2-0 win in the first leg came courtesy of goals from Antoine Semenyo early in the second half and Rayan Cherki deep into stoppage time to put them on course to meet Arsenal or Chelsea in the final. Their cup run began with wins away to Huddersfield (2-0) and Swansea (3-1) before they ran out 2-0 winners at home to Brentford.
City have also progressed in the FA Cup and qualified automatically for the UCL Round of 16 with a 2-0 home win over Galatasaray last week however recent league form is well below par. They have won just 1 of their last 6 in the EPL, 2-0 at home to Wolves, they lost the derby away to Man United and 4 other league games finished all square including last weekend’s visit to Spurs where they coughed up a 2-0 half time lead. City remain second in the standings but now 6 points behind Arsenal in the title race.
Newcastle
Newcastle are the holders of this trophy and they had their chances to open the scoring in the first leg including rattling the woodwork before conceding twice in the second half. They had been drawn at home in each of the previous rounds which brought wins over Bradford (4-1), Spurs (2-0) and Fulham (2-1).
Newcastle also made progress in the FA Cup and despite an excellent 1-1 draw away to PSG in the final round of the UCL League Phase, they dropped out of the top 8 and will now have to contest the play offs.
In the EPL Newcastle have lost ground are a just below half way in the standings. In their last 3 outings they drew at Wolves (0-0), lost at home to Villa (2-0) and most recently they crashed to a 4-1 defeat at Liverpool.
Recent Head to Head
Aside from the first le the teams met in the EPL at St. James Park on the 22nd November and Newcastle were 2-1 winners thanks to a brace of second half goals from Harvey Barnes either side of a Ruben Dias equalizer for City.
The Betting
At the time of writing City are 8/10 to win the second leg in regulation time with the draw at 3/1 and Newcastle can be backed at around 3/1.
A game of 3 goals or more is priced at 11/20 and it’s 6/10 for both teams to score.
The Verdict
Newcastle are really up against it but as the holders you would think they will still give this a real go. Unless the visitors get the opening goal the game could drift and I’m going to take my chances on under 2.5 total cards in the belief that could well be the case.
Bets: Total cards under 3.5 at 7/20 with Sportingbet
Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change