Manchester City 3-1 Southampton: Saints show significant positives despite being knocked out of Carabao Cup

Southampton were knocked out of the Carabao Cup at the Fourth-Round stage after a 3-1 loss to Manchester City on Tuesday night.

However, their display can be taken a lot more positively than their showing against Leicester on Friday.

During the game, Manchester City went 3-0 up after a header from Nicolas Otamendi and a brace from the lethal Sergio Aguero.

Saints started to string some promising attacking moves together in the final stages and got a goal back through Jack Stephens, whilst some good saves from Alex McCarthy kept City out on numerous occasions.

As expected, Saints had to soak up plenty of pressure from the hosts in the opening stages of the contest.

However, they looked a lot more solid than they did against Leicester on Friday evening despite facing two of the most dangerous strikers in the country in Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus.

Alex McCarthy was forced to deny full-back Angelino twice in the first 15 minutes, but he couldn’t do anything to deny Manchester City taking the lead on shortly after.

Bernardo Silva floated a cross into the middle of the area following a short corner and Nicolas Otamendi rose above everyone else to plant a header back across goal and in.

Then – five minutes before half-time – the hosts doubled their lead with relative ease.

Quick and incisive play down the right saw Kyle Walker fizz a low cross right across goal to Sergio Aguero, who had the simple task of turning home unmarked from around six yards out.

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Both goals had seen slack defending, but positives had been seen in the first period in a string of decent saves from Alex McCarthy and good shape from Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side in the majority of the half.

In the early stages of the second-half, McCarthy was forced into a good close-range save to deny Bernardo Silva but was helpless as luck played a huge part in City’s third.

A Riyad Mahrez shot took a huge deflection, dropped over the Saints defence and fell straight to Aguero to poke home his second of the evening.

Despite the deficit, Saints looked to get themselves a goal back and Sofiane Boufal went close just before being substituted.

He collected the ball, raced at the home defence and curled an effort with his weaker left foot that looked destined for the far corner, but Claudio Bravo was equal to it.

However, with 15 minutes of the contest remaining, Saints did get their goal.

James Ward-Prowse curled in a deep corner to the back post area and it was Jack Stephens who thumped his header inside the post – no chance for Bravo this time around.

3-1 is how it stayed but there were certainly positives for Saints, who should be judged on their displays against Everton, Arsenal and Watford as the season gets into November.

Hasenhuttl and his side return to the Etihad Stadium on Saturday and will likely face a much stronger City side, but they can take encouragement from Alex McCarthy’s display, their decent defensive shape and some good attacking spells in the second-half this evening.

Manchester City team: Bravo, Walker (Cancelo 64), Otamendi, Garcia, Angelino (Stones 79), Mahrez, Doyle, Foden, B. Silva, Jesus (Bernabe 86), Aguero

Unused subs: Carson, De Bruyne, D. Silva, Poveda-Ocampo

Saints team: McCarthy, Valery, Stephens, Bednarek, Danso, Hojbjerg, Romeu (Vokins 90+1), Ward-Prowse, Armstrong, Long (Redmond 67), Boufal (Adams 68)

Unused subs: Gunn, Yoshida, Vestergaard, Vokins, Ings