Manager Mark Hughes has been credited for introducing a more attractive brand of football since succeeding Tony Pulis in May 2013 and has signed exciting attacking talent in the shape of Bojan Krkic, Xherdan Shaqiri and Ibrahim Afellay, who was among the scorers on Tuesday.
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Current Premier League leaders Manchester City won the League Cup in 2014, but Everton have never lifted the trophy and Stoke have not ventured as far as the last four since they won the competition in 1972.
“We only had 72 hours to recover (from the 3-1 win over Southampton) so it was a very good answer from all the squad”, said City boss Pellegrini, whose side are also through to the last 16 of the Champions League.
Everton have drawn Manchester City in the League Cup semi-final, with Stoke City facing Liverpool in the other tie. Over two games I think we’d back ourselves against anybody.
Instead, it was an exercise in seeing if we could do something about our recent goalscoring problems and create the chances we needed to win the game.
“But we got Stoke”.
The Welshman – whose team defeated holders Chelsea in the previous round – added: “It’s the first time we have got to a League Cup semi-final in 40-odd years, so it’s been a long time, but now we’re there it’s a case of trying to get to the final”.
“There are some good teams left, but hopefully we can turn them over and get to the final”. “Our best player was the fans”. Having said that, I thought the boys worked really hard and no-one can fault our effort.
Against that we saw Stoke players being instantly booked for their misdemeanours, and our skipper being red-carded for an incident in which he clearly won the ball and didn’t foul his opponent. We played some big teams and put in some great performances.
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And Loovens admits that his teammates do need to work on their defending from set-plays, if they are to keep up their impressive form.
