Manchester United 0-2 Coventry City ( Mifsud*2)
Manchester United have been knocked out of the 48th League Cup by Coventry City, with Michael Mifsud scoring both goals for the Bluebirds. I happened to stumble upon a comment on a forum where a person wondered whether MU secretly wanted to avoid the pressure of another tournament on their head- with the FA Cup, the Premiership and Europe already present. A bit of research tells us that
2007-08- Lost to Coventry City in the third round
2006-2007- Lost to Southend United in the fourth round. Southend have been knocked out of this year’s competition by Blackpool. Won the Premiership preventing Jose’s dream of a hattrick of titles.
2005-2006- Won the Cup beating Wigan 4-0 in the final. The match is also remembered for the fact that Sir Alex chose to bench RVN and opted to start with Saha and Rooney. Their second League Cup win, came after fourteen years.
2004-2005- Lost to Chelsea in the semifinals. Lost to Arsenal in the FA Cup final.
*- In the League Cup the eight Premiership sides participating in Europe join in the third round.
Is it marking the start of a trend ? Maybe it is too early to say, but going out at the hands of teams like Coventry and Southend doesn’t augur well, even if you are playing your reserves.