Carling Cup Preview: Manchester v Birmingham, Battle of the Cities!

Manchester City welcome Birmingham City to the Etihad stadium on Wednesday for the League Cup tie which faces the current holders against the current FA Cup holders. City, Manchester that is, will be looking to put the nightmare capitualtion at the weekend to rest with a result against Brum. Birmingham themselves didn't have the best of results at the weekend, suffering a 4-1 defeat to now Championship leaders Southampton and will be looking at their own recovery.

Hopefully Roberto Mancini will name a completely different team to start Wednesday than the one that started on Sunday with the Carling Cup now being way down on most City's fans priority list. Hargreaves may even get a look in with Nasri, Toure and Silva all in dire need for a rest. Ideally the team I would like to see start would be:

Pantilimon, Onouha, Toure(K), Savic, Bridge, Hargreaves, Johnson(A), Razak, Milner, Balotelli and Tevez.

That team is more than capable of turning over Birmingham while giving Onouha and Toure a chance to find their feet. Bridge is determined to stay at City for a free paycheck so maybe he should get used also with Balotelli and Tevez starting up front. It will be a good chance to get Tevez to prove to the City faithful that he is still dedicated to the team. As for who would have the captains armband for this match? I think that would be interesting to see if Tevez reclaims it or Toure, Milner or even Hargreaves would instead wear the band.

Pantilimon is in goal instead of Hart just because I think he also needs a rest. With the last couple of games he has been let down by poor positioning of the back four on break aways. Hopefully we can still progress. If not, oh well, with all the other competitions were are in and would like to win, this is fourth on the list.