Manchester City’s History Of Extraordinary Cup Draws

Manchester City’s History Of Extraordinary Cup Draws
11:59, 24 Aug 2017

Manchester City fans have become a pessimistic bunch in recent years and sometimes with good reason.

We already have an inherent sense of misfortune which has been replaced in these times of plenty by a mild sense of paranoia.

Everybody is out to get us. UEFA, the Premier League, the FA all want to see moneybags City fail. The press have it in for us too with their incessant stories of what Raheem Sterling had a McDonald’s for lunch despite being a multi-millionaire & that whilst eating it he left three stray puppies in his baking hot Ferrari.

Of course the latter is somewhat tongue in cheek, but one particular facet of this paranoia that is bordering on the extraordinary is City’s cup draws in recent seasons.

The latest domestic cup draw will see City travel to West Bromwich Albion. On the face of it, not the worst draw, but in the context of draws over the past three seasons it is the latest in a long line of facing Premiership opposition away from home.

Last season’s League Cup saw City drawn away at Swansea then away at rivals Manchester United – both Premier League clubs.

The FA Cup run which saw them reach the semi-final saw them drawn away at Premier League clubs throughout barring an away trip to Huddersfield who were second in the Championship at the time and subsequently promoted. Trips to West Ham, Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough made up the cup run before being drawn away to Arsenal (albeit at Wembley).

The season before (2015/16) saw City win the League Cup by beating all Premier League opposition away from home with the exception of a trip to Championship side Hull City who were fourth at the time.

Wins away at Sunderland, Palace, Everton (over two legs) and Liverpool (in the final) made it a gruelling run for City and the FA Cup proved no different.

Away wins at Villa and Norwich were followed by a tie away at Stamford Bridge where Manuel Pellegrini chose to protest against the FA’s lack of help for the upcoming Champions League tie away in the Ukraine 48 hours later in the only way he knew how. He played City’s youth side who lost to Chelsea 5-1.

While sceptics may point out that a cup draw is down to luck, the odds of City playing away from home against top flight opposition so often over such a long period of time are extremely slim.

In fact – I’d wager that if you got a bookmaker to work out the chances of such a run it would be somewhere in the region of the chances of winning the lottery three weeks in a row.

And while our pessimistic fans may point out the injustice, it doesn’t help when their rivals down the road seem to gain favourable draws regularly in domestic cups (and I haven’t even mentioned the Champions League draw yet).

I may sound bitter and I believe that it is purely down to luck but it does seem incredible that City keep getting drawn away to Premier League opposition.

If for no other reason than a decent away trip to a new ground it would be nice to finally get a League One or Two club next time round.

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