That’s all from me. For all that it was won by the overwhelming favourites after they scored a couple of earlyish goals, it was a fine and compelling final. I leave you with some reminders of a few previous belting League Cup climaxes, and a reminder that the match report can be found here. Bye!
Raheem Sterling has a chat:
It’s always a pleasure coming to Wembley and even better to win it. Can never get enough. It was good. I thought we made it difficult for ourselves at times, but we’ve done the job and we were professional. The league was difficult this year. We’ve won one title so far but we’re still in the running for two more. We’re fully focused and ready to do the business. We know as a team, if we’re not in the running for one there’s always a couple more. We’ve just got to keep focused and that what we’ve done here. It’s so hard to do that for three years on the bounce and that’s what we’ve done, so we’ll just keep doing it, keep trying to win trophies.
David Hytner has filed his match report from Wembley:
Manchester City had no time for the romance of Aston Villa’s Carabao Cup final story. Pep Guardiola and his players deal only in the hard currency of domestic silverware and they extended their grip on it via a performance of near suffocating control.
It was important to add the qualification. Goals from Sergio Aguero and Rodri had put City in charge and, although Mbwana Samatta halved the deficit against the run of play at the end of the first-half, it looked as though Villa would be some way from the equaliser. Guardiola’s team called the tune for so long that it was almost impossible to foresee the drama at the very end. But as City failed to score again, the drama did come.
Much more here:
Pep Guardiola is pleased:
Three times in a row is a big success. It’s a consistency, incredible. It was awesome. We struggled in the first minutes, they had two clear chances. But we played really well, especially second half with 2-1, sometimes you don’t know if you attack or stick with the result. We had to score more, but the game was good. We didn’t know if they played with five at the back or four at the back, with four you can do it [overload on the flanks]. We try to win every competition. Being here, winning means a lot.
City go up to take their medals and lift the trophy! It looks like Phil Foden comes back down with the Alan Hardaker Trophy, as the man-of-the-match award in this match is otherwise known, after a fine display in an unfamiliar position on the right flank.
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Villa trudge up to collect their runners-up medals. The match stats paint a one-sided picture, but Villa clung on and kept scrapping to the last.
Villa’s squad huddle while Dean Smith delivers a post-match morale-boosting address. They showed plenty of fight and heart here, and will have to produce a lot more of both in their pursuit of Premier League survival.
Manchester City win the Carabao Cup!
Manchester City win their third successive League Cup, their fourth in five years and their fifth in seven. But Villa emerge with dignity not just intact but enhanced by a close and tense final, with a particularly exciting second half.
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Final score: Aston Villa 1-2 Manchester City
90+6 mins: De Bruyne leads and messes up a five-on-two break, but time’s up for Villa, and it’s City’s trophy!
90+4 mins: City win the header, and eventually clear. The ball is flung back into the mixer, and two Hourihane crosses pick out black shirts.
90+4 mins: With 90 seconds of stoppage time to play, Villa win another corner. The keeper’s coming up!
90+2 mins: Villa win the ball, hit it long, and then don’t even challenge Fernandinho for the header. De Bruyne is then pushed to the ground by Mings on the halfway line, leading to another yellow card.
90+2 mins: City have the ball by the left-hand corner flag, and them seem happy for it to stay there.
90+1 mins: Into stoppage time, and there’ll be five minutes of it!
90 mins: Save! Sterling slides the ball across from the right, and Bernardo Silva’s low shot is straight at Nyland, who saves with his legs!
89 mins: Blue Moon rings out around Wembley. Can City still be denied?
88 mins: They hit the post! It’s an excellent cross, and from the six-yard line Engels heads, Bravo pushes it onto the woodwork, and City clear!
87 mins: Villa are now playing with a front five, and they combine to win a corner.
85 mins: Sterling cuts onto his right foot and shoots high from the edge of the area. Villa have five minutes to work out how to get the ball into the City half and then keep it there for long enough for someone to score.
84 mins: Gabriel Jesus replaces Aguero, who hasn’t moved freely since that foot-slipping, side-net-hitting incident.
83 mins: All the action is at the wrong end from Villa’s point of view. A Foden cross brings another corner.
82 mins: Bernardo Silva gets to the byline again. This time he cuts back, but hits his cross into Mings.
81 mins: Aguero hits the side netting! Bernardo Silva surges to the byline on the left and chips into the penalty area, where Aguero volleys just wide! His standing leg seems to slide from underneath him as he does so, which doesn’t help.
80 mins: Ten minutes to go and Villa are still in this, which didn’t look likely for much of the first half. They’re not really creating, but there’s time.
79 mins: A final change for the Villa, with Samatta going off and Keinan Davis coming on.
78 mins: City win a corner, and then another corner. From the second one De Bruyne crosses and Nyland completely fails to take a straightforward catch at waist height, spilling the ball only just out of Sterling’s bootspace.
76 mins: A Silva swap for City, with David off and Bernardo on. Fernandinho takes the armband.
75 mins: “It’s not just the font. City’s kit says ‘Carabao Cup Final v Aston Villa’. That’s just bad and/or lazy writing, not to mention confusing to the casual observer,” writes Leo Addor. Indeed. Carabao Cup Final aren’t even playing in this match.
74 mins: Save! City win a corner, and Rodri meets it at the far post and heads low towards the near corner, by Nyland pushes it round the post!
73 mins: Replays show it wasn’t all that two-footed after all. Full-throttle, for sure, but a fair challenge in my book.
72 mins: Nakamba challenges Aguero for the ball. It looks quite two-footed, but he gets all of the ball before any of the man. The crowd bay for a red card, the referee gives a yellow.
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69 mins: A double change for Villa: Elmohamady is replaced by Trezeguet, and Conor Hourihane comes on for El Ghazi.
68 mins: Elmohamady runs 30 yards just to kick David Silva’s ankles, and is booked.
68 mins: Villa are committing more numbers to attack, which is giving City space to attack. De Bruyne has a pretty easy pass to Sterling as City break, but Mings intercepts.
66 mins: Never mind the football, Villa have definitely won the font-size match. Still lots of words, but less obtrusive.
65 mins: Villa win a free-kick on the right, but Grealish lifts it over everyone and out for a goal-kick.
64 mins: I was very picky about Villa’s pre-match footwear earlier, but I haven’t yet complained about the font size of the match-specific blurb on City’s kit. It’s just wildly excessive, and makes the whole shirt look overcrowded and messy and all-round bad.
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62 mins: Mings slides across to stop Aguero tapping in De Bruyne’s low cross from the right! There’s a goal in the air right now.
60 mins: Rodri is booked for stopping Douglas Luiz from leading a Villa break, after De Bruyne fell over when in possession.
59 mins: A cross from the left comes through to Foden beyond the far post, and Targett comes across to block his goalbound shot!
58 mins: City bring De Bruyne on for Gundogan.
57 mins: Yellow card! When Guilbert gets the ball a minute later Sterling comes across to challenge, runs into him and gets booked!
56 mins: Guilbert shoves the ball into Sterling’s chest as City prepare to take a throw-in. Weird, and not very gentlemanly conduct, which the referee sees but doesn’t punish.
53 mins: Nearly another! Mings wins the header but the ball bounces to Foden, whose half-volley bounces just wide!
52 mins: City break, and Villa make various attempts to foul various members of their team before the referee finally gives one. They have a free-kick, 30 yards out.
51 mins: Decent, battling, high-tempo play by Villa, but Elmohamady overhits his cross from the right at the end of it.
48 mins: Foden still seems to be in a permanent pocket of space, worryingly. He cuts infield, using Walker’s storming run as a decoy, and then shoots into a defender from 20-odd yards.
46 mins: Peeeeep! It’s on! And within 30 seconds Sterling is released down the left, but Guilbert throws himself to the ground and the referee gives the free-kick.
The players are back out and ready for more. Villa stand 45 minutes (and a couple of unanswered goals) from history. Can they possibly do it? Time to carpe this diem.
It’s still hard, on balance of play, to see anything other than a City win here. But half-time gives Villa a chance to tighten a listing defensive ship, and from there all it takes is another stumble.
Half time: Aston Villa 1-2 Manchester City
45+1 mins: Villa make it to the interval without further drama, and thanks to Stones’ stumble are neither dead nor buried at the break.
45 mins: “I don’t think VAR checks these kinds of decisions, but surely reviewing that incorrect corner decision that led to City’s second goal would have taken only a few seconds, and would instantly have corrected a clear and obvious error?” says Fraser Leggat. It’s a nastily complicated business, this VAR, and I sympathise with all those tasked with deciding the rules, but some of the boundary-setting does seem a little puzzling.
42 mins: Villa were looking forlorn, but suddenly they’re back in it, and have given themselves a perfect half-timely boost (subject to them holding out until half-time, obviously).
GOAL! Aston Villa 1-2 Manchester City (Samatta, 41 mins)
John Stones should deal with a bouncing throw-in, but instead he falls over, leaving El Ghazi free to run down the left and cross. It’s a good one, and Samatta dives to send it past Bravo!
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40 mins: Villa need to be playing with a back six when they’re out of possession, with left and right midfielders dropping back to cover the space on the flanks that the full-backs are leaving as they’re dragged infield.
38 mins: Zinchenko is found in space on the left. His pull-back finds Sterling, but instead of just shooting he tries to dribble past a few defenders, and eventually loses the ball.
37 mins: Fed up with all the fancy passing and clever angles, Kyle Walker blasts a shot high and wide from 35 yards.
36 mins: Gundogan lifts a lovely 40-yard pass to Foden, who has made another untracked run from the right, but City can’t convert the chance.
34 mins: This is tough on Villa, but they have been far too passive, and in particular are completely failing to track Foden’s runs off the right.
30 mins: Grealish challenges Gundogan on the right. The ball rebounds off him, back into Gundogan and out of play, definitely a goal kick. The officials mess up the decision, and then Villa mess up their marking. Rodri runs from the far post to the near and heads unchallenged into the far corner!
GOAL! Aston Villa 0-2 Manchester City (Rodri, 30 mins)
A second, as City score from a corner that should have been a goal kick!
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29 mins: Foden’s cross from the right comes through to Sterling, who lays off to Aguero. Engels absolutely flings himself in the way of the shot, which hits his back and rebounds to (temporary) safety.
27 mins: Sterling has a shot from 20 yards or so, which zips wide of the near post.
25 mins: As Gary Neville points out on Sky, Aguero keeps taking up a position on the left of City’s forward line, forcing Guilbert infield to track him, and leaving Sterling in space on the flank.
23 mins: A decent if not wildly threatening spell of possession for Villa, who twice get the ball to the left-hand edge of the penalty area but can’t work a chance, and in the end El Ghazi has a shot from wide on the left that Bravo saves easily.
20 mins: Sterling runs down the left and the attention of the Villa defence goes with him. He plays infield to Rodri, who chips over the defence into the path of Foden’s excellent and untracked run on the right side of the area, and he heads back to Aguero, who volleys into Mings’ calf as the defender tries to block. The ball bounces down and past Nyland!
GOAL! Aston Villa 0-1 Manchester City (Aguero, 20 mins)
A lovely opening goal from Manchester City!
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17 mins: Villa are an eighth of the way to a penalty shoot-out.
15 mins: Villa are sitting very deep, letting City play in front of them while they sit in two banks of loads on the edge of their penalty area. So far, so good.
12 mins: Rodri pokes a pass to Sterling that forces the Englishman to turn back instead of running into the area. He is absolutely furious about it, and makes his anger clear even before the ball arrives at his feet, and more so when it’s taken off him and booted clear by a defender.
10 mins: The corner is cleared but City send the ball back in, and Aguero’s header drifts onto the roof of the net.
8 mins: Foden does brilliantly to stay on his feet as various Villa players tried to take his legs out from underneath him, and City’s counter-attack ends with David Silva laying back to Zinchenko, whose 20-yarder was pretty rubbish but cleared behind for a corner.
6 mins: Positive play from Villa, for whom Samatta sends in a low cross from the left, but Fernandinho is the only player who anticipated it and he clears.
5 mins: City win their first corner. Gundogan takes it and Rodri wins the header, sending the ball looping up, away from goal, and out for a goal kick.
3 mins: Chance! Villa work the ball back towards the box, where Ahmed Elmohamady chips in a cross and El Ghazi heads just over the bar! It would have taken a very good header to score from there, and that was not one.
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3 mins: Targett swings it towards the far post, where Bravo punches away.
2 mins: Frederic Guilbert takes a long throw, which Rodri heads behind for a corner. Set pieces could be key for them, you’d have thought.
1 min: Peeeeeep! It’s on!
Manchester City’s captain, David Silva, has won the coin toss. Looks like Villa are going to kick off.
The national anthem has been sung, led by a pair of identical-twin sopranos. Like you do. They surely can’t think of many more reasons to put off the football, so I’m expecting kick-off to happen any moment now.
Mr Carabao and some of his friends are also getting in on the handshake act.
The players are on their way out! Action will be under way just as soon as the enormous pitch-coverings have been rolled away and everybody’s had a little handshake.
“I would say the more finals you play the more comfortable you are, but every final is different,” says Pep Guardiola, for whom this is final No25.
25 - This is Pep Guardiola's 25th final as a top-flight manager, winning 20 of the previous 24, including all five with City (two Community Shields, two League Cups, one FA Cup). Four of his previous seven finals have gone to penalty shootouts (W3 L1). Record. pic.twitter.com/k3iszlE2nY
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) March 1, 2020
Dean Smith has a chat about why he felt the need to remodel his defence:
I just felt we needed to. We’d conceded too many chances in our last two games, and were toying with changing back from a three to a four. We did it after 60 minutes and it was better against Southampton, so I just feel as a group they’re more comfortable in that system.
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“‘Amazing players out, amazing players in’? Let me fix that for you. ‘Amazing players out, amazing players and Claudio Bravo in,’” writes JR. “But seriously, I always look forward to seeing Bravo play. I love the feeling of knowing that anything is possible. (And I’m with you on the footwear. It’s shocking. I don’t know who decided that’s okay because it isn’t.)”
Anyway, those teams then. Manchester City have made eight changes to the team that started at Real Madrid in midweek, with Ederson, Nicolas Otamendi, Aymeric Laporte, Benjamin Mendy, Riyad Mahrez, Kevin de Bruyne, Gabriel Jesus and Bernardo Silva all dropping out, and Claudio Bravo, John Stones, Fernandinho, Phil Foden, Oleksandr Zinchenko, David Silva, Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling coming in. So, in short, amazing players out, amazing players in.
Aston Villa, meanwhile, have Orjan Nyland in goal instead of Pepe Reina, and Bjorn Engels and Ahmed Elmohamady both come in, replacing Kortney Hause, who has started (and indeed finished) their last 11 league games and all but one match of their League Cup run, and Ezri Konsa, who has started their last nine league games and played every minute of their cup run.
Hause was interviewed by the Birmingham Express & Star this week and seemed to think he would be involved (“All we can do is try our best and show character and try not to respect them as much. If you look at the matches we have done well in we have outrun the opposition, played more intent and enthusiasm. You have to do the dirty, nasty side of the game. That gives you the platform”), but today he’s not even on the bench.
City’s players have indeed turned up. No suits for them:
I haven’t seen any evidence that the Manchester City team has turned up yet, but I guess I’d have heard about it if they hadn’t.
Terry: Yeah, but have you seen what they’ve got on their feet?
Take my sartorial advice at your absolute peril, but I’m really thrown by that footwear decision.
The teams!
The team sheets have been handed in, and these were the names upon them:
Aston Villa: Nyland, Guilbert, Engels, Mings, Targett, Nakamba, Douglas Luiz, Elmohamady, Grealish, El Ghazi, Samatta. Subs: Taylor, Lansbury, Hourihane, Konsa, Trezeguet, Reina, Davis.
Man City: Bravo, Walker, Stones, Fernandinho, Zinchenko, Gundogan, Rodri, Silva, Sterling, Aguero, Foden. Subs: Gabriel Jesus, De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Mendy, Mahrez, Otamendi, Ederson.
Referee: Lee Mason.
Cup final matchday attire is a big question for occasional finalists. It looks like it’s suits yes, socks no for Aston Villa:
A R R I V A L 💪#AVFC #CarabaoCupFinal pic.twitter.com/FZl4rXMIW1
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) March 1, 2020
Hello world!
It is nearly a quarter of a century since Aston Villa thumped Leeds United to win what was then known as the Coca-Cola Cup. It was their fifth League Cup, destined to squeeze into their trophy cabinet alongside their seven league titles, seven FA Cups and one European Cup. That season they finished fourth in the league while Manchester City were relegated on goal difference, after an infamous final-day 2-2 draw with Liverpool in which they timewasted towards the end in the mistaken belief that a point would see them safe. in 1996 City had two league titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups and the European Cup-Winners’ Cup to their name. Judge it any way you like (except head-to-head results, to be fair - City only won nine games that season but two of them were against Villa), at that point in their history Villa were the better club.
Fast forward 24 years, time in which Villa haven’t won anything and City have won it all and on multiple occasions (domestically, at least), and everything has changed. City won the two league meetings this season by an aggregate score of 9-1, and Villa are the side fighting relegation. Villa have lost their last three; City have just beaten Real Madrid at the Bernabéu. You can get odds of 14-1 against a Villa win, while City are 1-6 if you’re lucky.
Anything could happen at Wembley today, but one outcome seems by a margin the most likely. Watford’s logic-defying 3-0 thumping of Liverpool last night might have given the underdogs some hope; Watford’s 6-0 thrashing by City in last season’s FA Cup final might have given them some nightmares. Does this Villa team have one massive upset in them? We’re about to find out.
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