Skip to content

Did historic Man Utd win cost Bristol City promotion? Why Carabao Cup run clipped Robins' wings

Bristol City travel to Wigan on Friday night, live on Sky Sports Football from 7pm

Things went pear-shaped for Bristol City soon after their historic win over Manchester United

If you've never been in the Premier League, it's not often your team beats Manchester United.

For Bristol City, that could not be more true. Before last December, they hadn't even played any of the Premier League top six in a competitive game since an FA Cup win at Liverpool in 1994 - so seeing off United 2-1 in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup ranked pretty high in the annals of their history.

Korey Smith of Bristol City scores his sides second goal past Sergio Romero of Manchester United during the Carabao Cup quarter finals
Image: Korey Smith's last-minute goal saw City past United at Ashton Gate

It looked the perfect season was developing for Lee Johnson's side on that night at Ashton Gate, with City also third in the Sky Bet Championship and breathing down the necks of second-placed Cardiff.

But as enthralling as the two semi-final legs were that followed with eventual champions Manchester City, they were just as energy-zapping and attention-diverting from the league - and the Robins' relatively small squad ended up 11th, eight points off a play-off spot.

So was beating United a blessing or a curse? And could dropping out of the Carabao Cup in round one this season help City keep up their bright start this time around, with Wigan next up on Friday night on Sky Sports Football from 7pm?

Latest Sky Bet odds
Latest Sky Bet odds

Check out all the latest Sky Bet Championship, League One and League Two odds here...

A season of two halves

City were in the driving seat for at least a play-off place when they beat United, having lost only three of their 22 league games up until that point. They kept going for another couple of games, too, before a last-minute defeat to Wolves in their last game of 2017 proved the start of the collapse.

City would win only four more games before the end of the season to finish 23 points behind Cardiff and promotion, having been four off at the time of beating United.

Also See:

Exhaustion had caught up with City, who had been struck down by injuries and could do little in the way of squad rotation.

Bristol City

Only 13 different players started more than 10 of City's 54 competitive games in 2017/18, and the cracks began to show in a 5-0 thrashing by Aston Villa on New Year's Day.

After that game, only days before their first leg with Man City, Johnson said: "What do you do? Write off the Man City game to get points in the next game? We can't. We haven't got a big enough squad to compete on all fronts due to our injuries."

The Robins would reserve their best performances for the two legs against Pep Guardiola's men, but in the league they were a spent force, throwing away leads of 3-0 over Sunderland and 2-0 over Leeds as the mental fatigue of some of their earlier performances took their toll.

There is a question whether it would be worth swapping a promotion for a night like beating United for City fans who have not found their club on the back pages too often - but either way, it may have proven fatal for their promotion charge.

Live EFL

Second time lucky?

Bristol City have started this season more impressively than they began the last, and sit four points off the top with eight games gone.

But not long ago, things weren't looking great for Johnson when three of his star players were sold in the summer; top-scorer Bobby Reid, left-back Joe Bryan and centre-back Aden Flint all departed, the first two for the Premier League.

Their success has been fuelled by replacements who have hit the ground running. Andy Weimann has already scored five goals, matching his tally from last season at Derby with 40 games to go, young defender Lloyd Kelly has stepped into Bryan's shoes and Tomas Kalas has slotted into a back-line which has only conceded once in the last four games.

Influential midfielder Korey Smith is the club's only long-term injury absentee, and with Plymouth doing them a favour by knocking them out of the Carabao Cup in round one this time around, the league is the only focus for Johnson and his players until January.

Bristol City's Andreas Weimann (centre) celebrates scoring his side's first goal of the game with Josh Brownhill (left) during a pre-season friendly match at Ashton Gate
Image: Weimann, 27, has scored almost one-tenth of his career goals in the first seven games of this season

Sky Sports pundit David Prutton was one of those surprised but impressed by the Robins' start to the campaign, and said: "It could have gone one of two ways for Bristol City this season. They lost arguably their two most important players in the summer in Aden Flint and Bobby Reid, but it doesn't seem to have impacted upon their form too much, which is a credit to Lee Johnson and the job he's doing there.

"The top two might be a little bit of a push with the likes of Leeds and Middlesbrough looking strong, while you're also waiting for some of the big boys such as Stoke and Aston Villa to wake up, but there's no reason why they can't make the top six."

The one thing which could halt the charge of City under Johnson, still the fourth-youngest manager in the whole Football League, is the reputation he has already developed for long runs of form, both good and bad.

If they are to help relinquish Bristol's title of the largest city never to host Premier League football, they will have to buck that trend this time around - but with the side currently enjoying its best start to a second-tier season since 1990, perhaps this could be the year.

Southampton v Brighton
Southampton v Brighton

Pick your Sky Sports Six-a-Side team for a chance to win the guaranteed £1k jackpot.

Around Sky