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| Photo from sportinglife.com |
Manchester City claimed an easy victory on the night, completing a 10-0 aggregate victory to reach the Carabao Cup final.
League One Burton were already defeated after a 9-0 demolition in the first leg, though Guardiola still named several first team players in his weakened line-up.
Sergio Aguero scored the goal, Mahrez assisted after good play from de Bruyne, the Argentine scoring in the 26th minute.
Burton had a shot cleared off the line, Will Miller with the effort.
As I said in my post after the first legs, City did it the right way in facing a lower league team in a cup competition, but I'm sure there will be fringe players who were irked that crucial first team players got a start ahead of players who could do with a run out in a zero-pressure match.
It was a risk by the Spaniard, I think, because quite often the tactics of the lower league teams is to be physical against Premier League opposition, so it wasn't unlikely that a strong tackle could have injured a vital player for weeks.
If his intention was to show that he's taking the competition seriously then he had already done that in the first leg, with a record breaking win.
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| Photo from Washington Post |
Chelsea overcame Tottenham's lead from the first leg, winning in dramatic fashion at Stamford Bridge.
After a tense 90 minutes, in which at times both sides seemed to be playing for penalties, it ended 2-2 on aggregate, with David Luiz scoring the winning spot kick.
Kepa Arrizabalaga saved well from Lucas Moura's penalty, and Eric Dier seemingly used up all of his goof fortune in penalty shootouts in the World Cup, because despite scoring the winner against Colombia, he skied his attempt against Chelsea.
Blues boss Maurizio Sarri, who said that his players are "extremely difficult to motivate", celebrated with his team at the end.
N'Golo Kante took the lead for Chelsea on the night, with a shot from outside of the box after a corner, going through a sea of bodies to find the net, reminiscent of Marchisio's goal against England at the 2014 World Cup.
After Sarri had said of Hazard that he "has to do more", he answered by giving his team a 2-1 aggregate lead, with an accurate finish after Cesar Azpilicueta picked him out in the build up.
Tottenham's injury list grew further with Ben Davies hobbling off in the second half, Spurs were still without injured duo Harry Kane and Dele Alli as well as Son Heung-min, who is away with South Korea at the Asian Cup.
Danny Rose replaced Ben Davies and set up Fernando Llorente to take it to penalties, after Spurs didn't have a shot on target in the first half.
Despite leading going into the second leg, part of me knew that Spurs would always throw it away.
Their statistics in cup competitions makes for bad reading - seven consecutive losses in FA Cup semi-finals, and their only trophies in 28 years are two League Cups.
Granted, injuries to key players can be seen as the reason for a poor performance tonight, but I think it goes deeper than that.
While Spurs have one of the best squads in the Premier League, and have improved massively under Pochettino, I still think they need to take another step up before being considered as title challengers.
However, we find ourselves at a time when results seem insignificant to the football community.
It was announced today that authorities are abandoning the search for Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala and pilot David Ibbotson, who were on a flight that went missing over the English Channel on Monday.
Argentine striker Sala was aboard the Piper Malibu plane, coming from France to join the Bluebirds, after a record transfer fee was agreed.
At this difficult time, all of my thoughts and best wishes go out to the friends and families of the two men, as well as fans of FC Nantes and Cardiff City, and anyone else who has been affected.
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