Kalvin Phillips, Julian Alvarez AND Erling Haaland all to start – Predicted XI: Southampton vs Man City (Carabao Cup Quarter-Final)

Manchester City are only three games away from another Carabao Cup final and riding the wave of Sunday’s thumping of Chelsea, two welcome distractions from a difficult title challenge.

But before Pep Guardiola’s side can contemplate a two-legged semi-final in arguably the world’s greatest sporting competition, there’s the fairly significant asterisk of an away game against a Premier League side to contend with.

Southampton are struggling in the league – a situation that has arguably grown worse since the appointment of Nathan Jones at the back end of 2022. But while the former Luton boss may be contending with Charlie Kane for the most out-of-his-depth man in football right now, there should be no doubt that the Saints are capable of causing an upset in this quarter-final.

Let’s not kid ourselves: Accurately predicting a Pep Guardiola cup team is a bit like trying to scale the Vincent Kompany statue outside the Etihad while smothered in vaseline. We have no idea what Pep’s thinking ahead of a domestic knock-out game – how seriously he takes the match will only be known when the teams are announced on Wednesday evening – but in the spirit of the Carabao, we’re going to do our best in the face of overwhelming odds.

Though we’ve predicted a very strong team because of the heavy rotation against Chelsea, there’s every chance Pep Guardiola goes with a weaker squad again and rests key players for the Manchester Derby. There’s just no telling until an hour before kick-off.

Here’s how we predict the team will look at St Mary’s!

Predicted Team

One of the few players we can count on starting is Stefan Ortega, who hasn’t really put a foot wrong this season despite playing Liverpool, and Chelsea twice.

At the back, we’re expecting to see a plethora of changes from the Chelsea game. This feels like a perfect match for the energy and physicality of Rico Lewis, who has more than earned his place in the first team over the last few weeks.

John Stones and Nathan Aké are without question Manchester City’s two in-form centre-backs at the moment, so we can see them coming back into the team, while Joao Cancelo’s substitute appearance on the left against Chelsea may well be a nod to him starting in that position here.

Other than Ortega, the only other starter we can confidently predict is Kalvin Phillips. Pep Guardiola went as far as to confirm that the Englishman will play this game in a press conference – something the Catalan coach habitually avoids doing, so it’s hard to see him not getting a start here.

Ahead of him, we think Kevin de Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan will get a run-out ahead of the big game at the weekend, though it’s likely neither will stay on the pitch past the hour mark if the game is going well.

Wingers are never easy to predict in this Manchester City side. Riyad Mahrez may well have played his way into the side for the derby, so we think he’ll be rested here.

Julian Alvarez is more than capable of playing out wide, which is where we think he’ll be in the Southampton game as the Argentine seeks as many minutes as possible. It’s a toss-up between Phil Foden and Jack Grealish, with one likely to start in the cup and another in the league. We’re predicting the latter to play against the Saints, but won’t be surprised if it’s the other way around.

We predicted Erling Haaland to start against Chelsea and were, obviously, wrong. Only a sucker would make the same mistake twice in the space of a few days… but you have to ask, why rest the Norwegian against Graham Potter’s side if you plan on giving him a full week off before the derby? We’re going to be bold and say that Haaland starts the Southampton game, with Pep Guardiola likely to take the opportunity to win another trophy very seriously.

Starting XI: Ortega; Lewis, Stones, Aké, Cancelo; Phillips, De Bruyne, Gundogan; Alvarez, Haaland, Grealish.
Substitutes: Ederson, Walker, Laporte, Akanji, Gomez, Rodri, Bernardo, Foden, Mahrez.