It is almost 46 years since Watford made a previous League Cup trip to Manchester and caused a huge upset.
That was back on October 4, 1978, when Luther Blissett fired himself into the national media headlines with two headed goals as Graham Taylor’s side came from behind to topple the mighty Manchester United at Old Trafford.
The trip to face City at the Etihad tonight presents the Hornets with another opportunity to upset the formbooks in Manchester, and with bookmakers pricing Watford as high as 20/1 to win in 90 minutes, an away success would be a massive shock.
“Yeah it would,” admitted Tom Cleverley.
“For me, they are the best team in world football and we are up against it.
“But there are a lot of things I feel have fallen in our favour: they’ve got one day to prepare, they’ve not got the biggest of squads to rotate and they’ve got three or four massive games either side of our game, which is probably a less significant match for them.
“I know I might be clutching at straws a little bit but let’s focus on ourselves.
“The main objective for me is we become a lot more hard to create chances against than we have in the last two games.”
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Cleverley was in the Watford team that was thumped 8-0 at the Etihad in September 2019, the heaviest defeat of his professional career – the second worst he suffered was when City beat the Hornets 6-0 at Vicarage Road in 2017.
In that 8-0 drubbing, City were 5-0 up after 18 minutes amid a start that makes recent poor openings look quite good.
What memories does Cleverley have of that afternoon?
“Not good ones to be honest,” he admitted.
“It was one of those days where we weren’t at it, they were, and everything they struck went in.
“I’ve not thought about it in preparation for this game but I’m fully aware that in the latter stages of my career as a player I didn’t have a very good record against City.”
Indeed, City have won all of their last 15 meetings with Watford, and Cleverley played in seven of them before retiring.
The Citizens have not lost at home since November 12, 2022, when Brentford beat them 2-1 in the Premier League.
In the 672 days since, City have played 48 home games and won 39 of them, drawing the other nine.
They have not lost a home cup game, domestic or European, since January 29, 2020, when Manchester United beat them 1-0 in the League Cup semi-final second leg.
That night was one of only six occasions since the start of the 2020/21 season when City have failed to score at the Etihad – and during the same period they have netted five goals or more at home 21 times.
However, they did go out of the Carabao Cup in the third round last season, losing 1-0 to Newcastle at St James Park.
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