City right to keep foot on the gas in Burton demolition
AS the goals rained in it was difficult not to feel sorry for Burton Albion’s players. They were fearing the worst ahead of the trip to the Etihad for the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg – but this was a nightmare they surely hadn’t contemplated.
When Marcus Harness wasted a glorious chance early on when they were only 1-0 down, the Brewers might have felt they were in with a chance of troubling the Blues, or of giving them enough to worry about that they could stem the tide of attacks coming from Pep Guardiola’s side. It didn’t work out like that. It was 4-0 at half-time, 7-0 after 65 minutes and when Mike Dean’s whistle put Burton out of their misery it was 9-0. By the end, the Etihad crowd were willing their side on to make it double figures.
Such big victories are rare in English football for a couple of reasons. The competitive balance doesn’t usually allow for it, even when lower league sides are facing the Premier League’s big boys, and also teams often take their foot off the gas when the goals begin to flow. It’s not unusual for teams to get four, five or six with plenty of time left only to ease up.
There was an argument that City should have gone down that route on Tuesday night, that Burton’s humiliation was complete midway through the second half and the Blues were simply rubbing their noses in it by continuing to pile up the goals and hunting for double figures.
It’s an argument that would gain little credence in either dressing room though, and rightly so. To ease up with a quarter of the game to go just to protect your opponents would be doing them a disservice.
This is professional sport. It might have been a tough night for Burton’s players, but they would want to test themselves against City’s very best for 90 minutes, not against a team putting their feet up for half an hour.
Likewise Nigel Clough. He will want his team to learn from nights like this. They will take more from this experience than a run-of-the-mill League One fixture, good or bad.
Guardiola wanted this two-legged tie done and dusted in the first leg. In the end it was over by half-time of the first leg, but as the City boss said afterwards he urged his players to keep going in the second half.
“We spoke about that at half-time – to play simple, let them run and try to score more goals,” he said. “It’s the best way to respect the competition and respect the opponents.
“We spoke about travelling to Burton with as big an advantage as possible, but we didn’t expect this.”
Guardiola is right. To ease up does a disservice to the paying supporters, to the opposition and to the integrity of the competition.
Clough spoke of the benefit of the game to his side at full-time as well.
“We can’t buy that kind of experience for our young lads and for the players who have come through our academy that gives them firsthand experience of what playing against top players is like,” he said.
Better to have that experience for 90 minutes than for 60 minutes.
This might have got messy for Burton, but they’d rather that than being treated like they need protection from the true gap between the two teams.