Burton Albion vs Manchester City Predictions

Restoration of pride is on the agenda for Burton Albion on Wednesday, ahead of their Carabao Cup Semi Final second leg meeting with Manchester City at the Pirelli Stadium.

Burton would have expected to chase shadows for the vast majority of the first leg at the Etihad, though the League One outfit wouldn’t have envisaged being annihilated 9-0 by the current Carabao Cup winners.

City were relentless in Manchester a fortnight ago, and they showed their underdog visitors little mercy. The huge margin of victory offers Pep Guardiola the opportunity to rest many of his starts for the return game however, and that should have a blunting effect on City’s usual razor-sharp football.

The scale of the changes will be a factor, with Guardiola notoriously reluctant to give starting positions to the younger members of his squad. The early team news suggests that City will draft in half a dozen junior fringe players against Burton, however.

Albion are unbeaten in 4 of their last 6 League One matches at the Pirelli Stadium, and while they won’t hold much hope of securing an unlikely win against City, a decent performance and reasonable final scoreline would be seen as a victory of sorts after the first leg demolition.

City are aiming to win their 7^th fixture on the trot after a hugely positive start to their new year. The Citizens rattled home an incredible 27 goals against the 6 teams they’ve already beaten on their impressive run, 16 of which were registered against lower league clubs in cup competition.

At the Pirelli Stadium this week, we expect the final score to be a little less emphatic. With City likely to field a makeshift team, a disjointedness in performance feels inevitable.

City should still record a relatively comfortable win though, which makes the away win & under 3.5 goal combination well worth considering for this week’s contest. Our correct score prediction follows along the same lines – we’re forecasting a 3-0 win for the Citizens.