City may have rarely threatened the goal of their Premier League hosts, but likewise the former Cup winners were seemingly comfortable with the slender advantage Wilfried Bony’s 12th minute goal had given them.
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In-form Kevin De Bruyne struck twice as Premier League leaders Manchester City overpowered Hull City 4-1 on Tuesday night to lead three top-flight teams into the League Cup semi-finals. Shane Long pulled one back for Saints four minutes into the second half but just as City started to wobble, Aleksandar Kolarov settled home nerves with a powerful strike to secure his side’s first league win since Halloween.
City continued to control proceedings in the second half, but the second goal was elusive and Hull began to grow into the game.
Silva was one of five changes to the team that beat Southampton 3-1 on Saturday as Bony started in the lone striker role after Sergio Aguero sustained a foot injury at the weekend.
“It’s important for us to reach the semifinal of the League Cup”, Pellegrini said.
The 34-year-old said: “I think this was my best performance with this shirt but I will try to make a new “best performance” in the next game”.
Steve Bruce is clearly making Hull’s promotion campaign a priority and, specifically, Saturday’s game at Leeds United, but it was a shame the fourth-placed team in the Championship were not more emboldened to go for a place in the semi-finals.
“Everybody could see that Roberto could have used one more chance maybe, but he played a good match!”
Southampton were undone by the speed and movement of Sterling and Delph, conjuring up the first goal for De Bruyne on 9 minutes.
Acknowledging that we had chances in the game, there was a sense for Davies that it was a closer match than the final result painted it out to be.
Bruce decided to make seven changes to his team that were humbled 2-0 by Derby County on Friday.
“The most important thing is to be involved in all the competitions at this stage”.
“We’ve been punished and that’s the lesson you take – you get punished for any mistake you make against the big boys and you don’t get bigger than them”.
Manchester City have won their last six League Cup ties against sides from a lower division, scoring 24 times and conceding just two. In the League Cup they produced two outstanding displays to knock out Leicester City and Swansea City in the recent rounds.
Caballero, who took over in goal from injured England number one Joe Hart, said: “It was like a call with big attention – Liverpool played really well”.
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If it meant Hull fans had virtually nothing to sing about at the Etihad (though they sang magnificently through-out anyway) then they will still forgive their manager if he gets them back into the top flight.
