The Citizens face Championship side Hull City in the last eight of the League Cup on Tuesday off the back of returning to the top of the Premier League with a 3-1 win over Southampton at the weekend.
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The Chilean, who has fond memories of the competition after winning it as his first trophy in English football in 2014, is likely to resist the temptation to field a weakened line-up against the Championship high flyers. He said: “We had a bad start”.
Pellegrini said: “We will see, with the medical staff, the way they recover from these games”.
“We’ve got to have the belief we can mount a challenge against them and take them on”.
“He trained 10-12 days with us without interruption, the same as Coutinho, and that is the reason we played like this with the formation like this – we tried to put on the pitch as many players who trained together”.
Along with defenders Andy Robertson and Harry Maguire, Jakupovic is one of three players to have featured in every game of the Tigers’ historic run in this competition.
The last six meetings between the two clubs have all come in the Premier League, where City are unbeaten against Hull in four games.
Meanwhile, City have now set their sights on Tuesday’s League Cup quarter-final against Hull City. Four of the game’s goals went in from the 80th, with Ross Barkley scoring in the fifth minute of stoppage time to restore the lead for Everton. In their last league cup game they beat AFC Bournemouth 1 – 0.
Manuel Pellegrini’s charges have also secured progression into the knockout rounds of the Champions League, despite going down to a 1-0 defeat away at Italian giants Juventus last week. I’d imagine they’d like to give a run out to David Silva but then again they might not want to risk him.
And Pellegrini was at a loss when quizzed on his team’s performance after the game.
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“A couple of years ago I don’t think many people expected us to get to an FA Cup final so let’s keep our fingers crossed for another upset”. “He has a kick in his heel, but nothing important”.
