For the FA, the FA Cup and League Cup are like a son and a godson.

As the organizer of the FA Cup, the oldest football competition in the world, it is naturally the FA, but the organizer of the League Cup is the Football League, and the purpose of the latter was originally to challenge the FA Cup, because at that time, in the eyes of many English fans, the FA Cup was even higher than the league. In terms of the quality of the participating teams, it should be said that the League Cup is also higher than the FA Cup, the League Cup was limited to the 92 teams under the command of the Football League at that time, although the Premier League later separated from the Football League to form the Premier League, which made the Football League less than the top of the pyramid of 20 teams, but the League Cup format has not changed. However, the FA Cup is open to all teams registered with the FA, so the FA Cup has been a team of 660 teams that have reached their peak in the 0405 season.

Therefore, the development of the FA Cup and the League Cup, in layman's terms, is that the godson is trying to challenge the status of his own son, and the result is that he is still pro, and he is still doing. Founded in 1961, the League Cup began to accept title sponsorship in 1982 until now, and has changed its name six times, which is like a person, changing the name more, others may not know you as a person, football is the same, compared with the League Cup, the FA Cup is much stronger, in order to maintain its century-old reputation, the FA Cup has always refused to accept title sponsorship, but it has always been quite popular with internationally renowned brands.

Of course, for the current Manchester City, they do not have the right to choose whether to kiss their son or godson.

On the second day of the new year, the FA's own son visited. With no seeding and no draw restrictions, the FA Cup will be an upset compared to the League Cup, but this time Manchester City did not allow themselves to be planted in their "first round", Adriano's goal helped them win 1-0 away at Middlesbrough in the Championship, and their neighbours Manchester United were not so lucky. Ferguson fielded a number of key players in this game due to the opponent Leeds United, but even so, they still lost 0-1 at home, causing the biggest upset of this FA Cup round.

A week later, in the 21st round of the Premier League, Manchester City swept Blackburn Rovers 4-1 at home, and after scoring a hat trick against Stoke City, Bale was "refrigerated" by Linson for more than a week. In short, the world is not chaotic enough, and the tabloids still need to continue to work hard.

It is not only Bale's excellent form that excites all Manchester City fans, but also Manchester City's league standings, which have been overtaken by Chelsea since the start of the season as the Premier League leaders are overtaken by Chelsea on goal difference.

The team's excellent results have also made Manchester City fans temporarily "forget" the winter transfer market that has been opened.

Compared to last year's lively winter. This year's winter window, which has been open for nearly ten days, seems to be quiet, not only Manchester City has no news, but the other big clubs have also remained silent for the time being, although the British media still make up a lot of transfer news every day. But the only thing that stands out is a transfer that has been officially recognized by Fulham, the protagonist is the main central defender of England's Under-20 youth team, Chris Smalling, and the two big Bo Ferguson and Arsene Wenger in the Premier League have taken a fancy to him at the same time, which has added a lot of gimmicks to this transfer. It is said that the value has reached the tens of millions level, which makes Lin Sen, who saw the report by chance, feel a little stunned, not that he thinks that Smalling is not worth the price. No matter how it is, it is also the main member of Manchester United's defense in the future, what makes him astonishing is that at the moment Smalling is not even the main defender in Fulham, Smalling, who just made his debut in the Premier League last season, has just gained a foothold in the Fulham first team this season, and last year, well, now it should be regarded as the summer before last, the price of Ferguson to put Pique back to Barcelona is only a mere five million, euros.

Sure enough, such a thing as an account is not an ordinary value in England. It's also a shame that Lin Sen coached Malaga last year, otherwise in England, which requires a labor certificate, as far as Malaga's budget is concerned, even if it is Lin Sen, I am afraid that he needs to obediently consider how to relegate first.

On January 12, the day before the first leg of the League Cup semi-finals, Robinho's transfer was decided, and as has happened, Juventus finally chose to back down in the face of Mawood's "final recovery", and Robinho also returned to Brazil according to Linson's familiar trajectory. On the same day, the Brazilian giants Santos held a special press conference to announce that they have successfully loaned Robinho from Manchester City, and the Brazilian striker will return to the Brazilian parent club until July 12, during which Robinho's salary will be paid in full by Santos. At the press conference, accompanied by the chairman of Santos, Robinho, who was holding a Santos jersey, had a bright smile on his face. In interviews with Brazilian media, he called this return to Santos a homecoming, and as for Manchester City, he was tight-lipped and repeatedly said that the important thing was that he was happy to return to Brazil.

It seems that Robinho is reluctant to recall Manchester City, which is obviously not his "style", but after his return to Santos, there is someone who stands up for him, and that is the head coach of the Brazilian national team, Dunga. Although Dunga and Robinho had a tense relationship due to discipline issues, Dunga still showed his love for the star player of the Brazilian striker, and he pointed out that Linson's "banishment" of Robinho was a crime, and thought that Manchester City was too hasty in handling Robinho's affairs. Ironically, Dunga bombarded Linson while he included fellow Manchester City player Adriano in the squad in the new round of Brazilian national team warm-up matches, while Robinho was not selected.

Linson did not respond to Dunga's words, from his point of view, it was just Dunga's excuse to use himself and Manchester City when he did not call up Robinho, he had more important things.

In the League Cup semi-finals, Manchester City's opponent is Aston Villa.

This season, Aston Villa is a veritable giant killer, in the first half of the season, Aston Villa suffered a total of five defeats, and among them, only one defeat to Arsenal was lost to the top six teams in the league, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool all suffered defeats on them, even Manchester City, also failed to take advantage of them, Manchester City's four consecutive draws in October were based on Aston Villa, and that game also caused Aston Villa manager O'Neal to be dissatisfied, Because the referee gave Manchester City a penalty in the final stage of the game, Manchester City avoided a defeat.

So, for O'Neill, Manchester City's four-game draw in a row is complete retribution.

Lin Sen's original complaint about O'Neill was only turning a blind eye, because the penalty kick was indeed controversial in slow motion, but it was in slow motion, at the press conference, he who had not seen the slow motion at the time, just told the truth: I didn't see anything, the referee awarded us a penalty, we went in, it's as simple as that. But the angry O'Neill didn't think that Lin Sen was telling the truth, so he sarcastically said nonsense on the spot, and Lin Sen didn't pay attention to it.

Now that two months have passed since the game, the two teams have met again, Lin Sen thought that the last round was over, but he didn't expect that before the game, O'Neill began to chatter again, and this time, Lin Sen was no longer polite. After winning the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final 3-1 at home, Linsen retorted lukewarmly: Fortunately, the referee did not award us a penalty in this game.

"Only a blind man would say that the penalty in that game was not a miscalculation." O'Neill was furious on the spot.

"Only a loser would babble on about a penalty for two months." Lin Sen showed no weakness.

……

Looking at the helpless expression of Miss Vicky-Cross, who hosted the press conference, Lin Sen, who returned to the backstage, comforted the other party casually: Don't worry, occasionally.

It's occasional, but for the reporters present, there is no better press conference than this. The next day, the headlines were not about Manchester City advancing to the Carabao Cup final, but about Manchester City's manager and Aston Villa's manager almost missing out on the press conference, which even led to the battle between Birmingham and Manchester, the UK's second-largest city.

O'Neill is not the only manager who has been "famous" in the Premier League in recent times, two days later, Linson led his team to Liverpool to challenge an opponent who should have met a long time ago - David Moyes's Everton.

For Moyes's impression, in addition to the failed "Ferguson heir" who still stays in his memory, there is only the toughness of the other party's transfer in Lescott this summer, in general, although Marwood gritted his teeth at Moyes, but Linson's impression of Moyes is not bad, because it is his "obstruction", Lescott, who was supposed to transfer to Manchester City at a high price, finally stayed at Everton, for which Lescott was also rumored to have had a conflict with Moyes for a period of time, but the South African World Cup is imminent, There's no way Lescott really fell out with Moyes, so the two have long since reconciled.

However, keeping Lescott has not made Everton's record this season better, on the contrary, they finished fifth last season, and have won only five games so far this season, and have now fallen to 13th place, after they replicated Manchester City's feat in October with a four-game draw in a row, and then, they met Manchester City. (To be continued......)