Cup success can lift City's young guns to greater glory

When Pep Guardiola looks at his captain, he will see a man with the same medal collection as him from their time in England.

- RICHARD JOLLY SENIOR FOOTBALL CORRESPONDENT

He has won 18 trophies with Manchester City, each with Bernardo Silva by his side. Yet, increasingly, they are the anomalies. City have been England’s most successful team during the Guardiola decade. And yet, unusually for them, much of his squad have no silverware to show for their first-team City careers.

Recent years have seen an exodus of the serial winners – Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Kyle Walker, Ederson, Manuel Akanji and Jack Grealish last summer; Julian Alvarez, Riyad Mahrez and Aymeric Laporte before then – while the last 12 months have brought a dozen signings. Gianluigi Donnarumma arrived as a Euro 2020 and Champions League winner but the other newcomers are nothing like as decorated.

City have, of course, been bolstered by homegrown additions to the group. Max Alleyne is in line to make just his third City appearance in the Carabao Cup semifinal against Newcastle United, the £62.5m signing Antoine Semenyo only his second. They represent two types of players for whom the Carabao Cup assumes a greater than normal importance.

"It's not so much for the lifting of the silverware but more to be self-aware and [think], 'OK, we won, we are able to do it"," rationalised Guardiola. "[There are a] few who have not been there before, and it is important for a group to try to experience and learn from the lessons."