City Continue To Pick On Newcastle In Capital One

Manchester City host a resurgent Newcastle United in the last 16 of the Capital One Cup on Wednesday but both are likely to have one eye on the weekend’s fixtures.

Form
A 2-1 defeat at Upton Park on Saturday afternoon was a real blow to Manchester City’s hopes of retaining the Premier League title even if a last-minute equaliser from Manchester United’s Robin van Persie limited Chelsea stretching their lead over City to six points.

It will still have been a galling loss for Manuel Pellegrini’s side against West Ham though as goals in either half from Morgan Amalfitano and Diafra Sakho put the Hammers in command before David Silva’s late stunner made it a frantic finish. It was a first defeat in eight for City but capped a disappointing week for Pellegrini as he had already watched his charges surrender a two-goal lead to draw with CSKA in Moscow four days earlier and facing an uphill task to qualify for the Champions League knockout stages.

Sergio Aguero’s failure to find the back of the net on Saturday was the first time in six games the Argentine hasn’t scored but he’s still hit 11 in 12 appearances this season.

Newcastle recorded only their second league win season thanks to a 2-1 win over Tottenham at White Hart Lane on Sunday. Emmanuel Adebayor had given a dominant Spurs side a half-time lead but the Magpies completed an impressive turnaround after the break when first Sammy Ameobi scored within ten seconds of coming on at half-time, then Ayoze Perez’s first goal for the club on his full league debut gave the visitors all three points. Alan Pardew’s side have now more than doubled their points tally in a fortnight after also picking up all the points against Leicester in the previous game and now sit on ten points from nine games, two points outside the relegation zone.

Team News
Pellegrini looks likely to ring in the changes with a pivotal Manchester derby looming at the weekend with only Frank Lampard and Samir Nasri missing through injury. Aguero is expected to be rested with Steven Jovetic in line to replace him with Silva and skipper Vincent Kompany also likely to be given the night off.

Pardew hasn’t got such luxuries with a leaner squad and big injury list to contend with. Mike Williamson and Cheick Tiote could return for the Toon Army but Papiss Cisse, Siem de Jong, Emmanuel Riviere, Rolando Aarons and Davide Santon are all missing.

Head to Head

City have won a remarkable 11 games in a row against Newcastle with the last five games resulting in a 14-0 aggregate scoreline.

Both of the last two clashes at the Etihad have ended in 4-0 home wins while the Citizens won 2-0 at St James’ Park on the opening weekend of the season.

Recommended Bets
With their amazing record against the Magpies of late the hosts are understandably priced at 3/10, and would probably be even bigger favourites were this a league game. Jovetic looks a good punt to score at 21/20 anytime or 9/2 first while Perez is a huge 12/1 to score first and more than acceptable at 10/3 to get on the scoresheet at anytime. I also like the 11/10 on more than 3.5 goals to go in during a tie where both sides can play with the handbrake off.