Don't expect many goals when Premier League clubs meet in Carabao Cup semis

The League Cup has had many different names over the years but there has been one consistent aspect to the semi-finals - a low-scoring first leg when the tie is an all-Premier League affair.

Manchester City's remarkable 9-0 success over third-tier Burton last season is probably still fresh in the memory of most, but one reason why it is so easy to remember is that it was such an unusual outcome.

Not since 2016 and Everton's 2-1 win over City has a League Cup semi-final first-leg tie featured more than two goals when both participants were top-flight outfits, and the other five in that period produced a grand total of five goals.

The competition is not taken seriously in the early rounds, but by the semi-finals most teams are up for the cup and, as with most football matches, when the importance of the fixture is turned up the goals expectation heads south.

There have been 14 semi-final ties featuring two Premier League outfits in the last ten years and ten of those landed for punters backing under 2.5 goals.

Those 14 first legs produced just 29 goals at an average of 2.07 and is seriously bumped up by City's 6-0 win over relegation-threatened West Ham at the Etihad in 2014.

On that occasion out-of-his-depth centre-back Roger Johnson made his Hammers debut under Sam Allardyce, who was heavily criticised by the east London faithful for seemingly giving up on West Ham's Wembley dream.

Just days earlier they had been humiliated 5-0 by Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup too.

Discard that West Ham hammering and the first-leg average goes down to 1.77.

Despite the trend suggesting otherwise, both of this season's semi-finals - Manchester United v City and Leicester against Aston Villa - are odds-on to land for over 2.5-goal backers.

The trend would suggests there could be some potential in going for the unders and also playing the low-scoring correct-score margins with 1-0 a lively runner.

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