Carabao Cup final preview: Spurs and Man City set to do battle at Wembley

The first major cup final of the English football season takes place on Sunday as Spurs and Manchester City meet at Wembley in what should be a thrilling affair.

Spurs come into this one having replaced Jose Mourinho as a manager with interim boss Ryan Mason, while City will be hoping to make amends for their FA Cup semi-final defeat against Chelsea last week as they seek to win the Carabao Cup for the sixth time in the last eight seasons.

Mason to lead Spurs into battle

On Tuesday, Spurs confirmed that Mason would become an interim head coach until the end of the season, following Mourinho’s departure on Monday morning.

Mason, who has impressed as an academy coach at the club since his retirement in 2018, will lead Spurs out at Wembley with arguably the most difficult task a manager could be presented with domestically at this moment in time: a cup final against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City – you’d be hard pressed to find another manager in world football with the breadth of experience managing, and winning, one-off matches such as Sunday.

However, life under Mason at Spurs has got off to a fantastic start, thanks to Wednesday’s 2-1 win over Southampton. The north London club came from behind to win with a Heung-Min Son penalty and Gareth Bale strike securing Mason’s first points as a manager as he became the youngest boss in Premier League history. Can he do it again at Wembley?

That victory will do Spurs the world of good ahead of Sunday as will it do for Bale, who has now had a direct hand in 11 goals in his last 11 starts in all competitions for the club with nine goals and two assists. Bale is 15/2 to break the deadlock at Wembley.

City to bounce back from Wembley setback? 

As the dream of winning the quadruple fades away for another season, it would be disastrous for City to lose back-to-back domestic Wembley fixtures against their league rivals, and Guardiola will have his side ready for a dogfight on Sunday.

Three consecutive League Cup titles will become four on Sunday should City win, and six in the last eight, with the Citizens further stamping their monopoly on this competition since 2013/14.

Despite having all but wrapped up the Premier League title and progressing to the Champions League semi-final, City have looked vulnerable of late, with defeats to Leeds and Chelsea a sign that they’re not firing on all cylinders as the business end of the season approaches, though they managed to get back to winning ways with a scrappy victory over Aston Villa on Wednesday.

Sunday presents an opportunity to put any lingering doubts to bed and to win their first trophy of the season – as they so often do in this competition.

City are 1/2 favourites to do just that inside 90 minutes, with Spurs priced at 11/2, while the draw is 16/5.

To lift the trophy by any measure, Spurs and City are 11/4 and 1/4 respectively.

Check out all the latest football betting odds at William Hill