Man City win record-equalling fourth straight League Cup

Manchester City players pose with the trophy as they celebrate after winning the Carabao Cup Pool  - Reuters

Reuters: Manchester City claimed a record-equalling fourth successive League Cup triumph as Aymeric Laporte’s late header sealed a deserved 1-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

Spurs had soaked up intense City pressure for most of the game to somehow stay in contention at Wembley Stadium.

But City finally made the breakthrough in the 82nd minute from an unlikely source as defender Laporte met Kevin de Bruyne’s free kick and headed past goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.

A combination of Lloris, last-ditch defending and some poor City finishing had kept the 8,000 crowd on tenterhooks but in the end Pep Guardiola’s side got their reward.

They have now matched Liverpool’s feat of winning the competition for four seasons in a row, and also join Liverpool with the most League Cup wins on eight.

Tottenham, who had rookie manager Ryan Mason on the touchline after Jose Mourinho’s sacking last week, produced a disappointing performance and their wait for a first trophy since winning the 2008 League Cup continues.

After City’s FA Cup semi-final loss to Chelsea last weekend, they chalked off the first part of what they hope will be a treble, with the Premier League title almost in the bag and a Champions League semi-final to come against Paris St Germain.

While the League Cup is lower down Guardiola’s priorities there was no disguising his joy as he became the first manager to win the League Cup in four successive seasons.

It had added significance as the final was played in front of the biggest crowd since Britain went into a first COVID-19 lockdown last March – one of the government’s test events to get fans safely back into venues as restrictions ease.

“It’s not full, but it was a great noise,” said Guardiola, who now has won 30 trophies as a manager since taking over at Barcelona in 2008.

“Today we are incredibly happy that we have four in a row in this competition. We tried to win the game, created a lot of chances. They had some chances on the counter but in general we had a good game.”