City travel to Crystal Palace in the League Cup this evening, eager to avoid another embarrassing second round exit.
The blues have only made it to the third round once in four attempts and suffered defeat last season at Brighton & Hove Albion on penalties. Stuart Pearce took the blues to Doncaster Rovers in 2005, only for the blues to be beaten on penalties and a season later, City lost 2-1 at Chesterfield. Only Sven Goran Eriksson managed to get the blues through with a 2-1 win at Bristol City in 2007.
City and Palace have met just once in the League Cup at the quarter final stage in 1995, with Palace running out comfortable 4-0 winners to reach the semi final.
City go into the game on the back of two straight Premiership victories with a friendly win over European Champions Barcelona sandwiched in between.
Palace meanwhile have had an indifferent start to the season. After drawing the first game of the season 1-1 with Plymouth, they were beaten at Bristol City before recording a 3-1 win at Roy Keane’s Ipswich before losing 2-0 at home to Newcastle at the weekend.
New boys Joleon Lescott and Sylvinho are unlikely to figure and Hughes may be tempted to rest top scorer Emmanuel Adebayor and Robinho after both picked up slight knocks at the weekend. Vladimir Weiss may get another chance to shine after his dazzling display in Spain last week.
Prediction: After years of struggle, I can’t honestly see City losing this one and am going for a very comfortable win. Palace 0-3 City