Will the Carling Cup have a winner from outside the top flight?

It has been 40 years since a side from out­side the top flight of Eng­lish foot­ball has won the League Cup, when Swin­don beat Arse­nal 3–1 way back in 1969. How­ever the lose of Liv­er­pool and Chelsea last night has opened the way for the clubs from the Cham­pi­onship to claim some major silverware.

Lower league clubs have been in the final in recent his­tory with Birm­ing­ham the last one, push­ing Liv­er­pool all the way only to lose on penal­ties. The year before that Tran­mere nar­rowly lost to Leices­ter. So this year could be the year that some­one goes that step fur­ther and per­haps shows that despite being less pres­ti­gious than the FA Cup this com­pe­ti­tion can pro­vide just as big an upset.

Look­ing through the sides left in the draw for the quar­ter finals the obvi­ous favourites in the foot­ball bet­ting will be Arse­nal, Man­ches­ter United and cur­rent hold­ers Tot­ten­ham. How­ever if the draw throws two of those three together then we could eas­ily see the likes of Burn­ley, Wat­ford or Derby reach the semi-finals at least.

Burn­ley will cer­tainly fancy their chances against any­one after their vic­tory at Chelsea and with the Clarets fly­ing high in the league they are the ones to avoid for the Pre­mier League sides if they don’t want to become their next cup victims.

Despite my head telling me that the win­ners will come from either Spurs, Arse­nal or Man Utd my heart is pray­ing for it to be one of the Cham­pi­onship sides left in the com­pe­ti­tion. Whilst my head is telling me that one of those three sides will be lift­ing the tro­phy at Wem­b­ley in Feb­ru­ary it is far from impos­si­ble that we won’t be see­ing Paul Con­nolly or Jay DeMerit tak­ing that long walk up the steps to col­lect the three han­dled trophy.

With the big clubs fail­ing to take this com­pe­ti­tion seri­ously due to Euro­pean or rel­e­ga­tion con­cerns then this, as we head for the quar­ter finals, is a major oppor­tu­nity to cre­ate a piece of history.

Derby and Wat­ford both have recent Pre­mier League expe­ri­ence, albeit unsuc­cess­ful, and so will know what to expect if they draw a Pre­mier League side. As for Burn­ley they have already knocked out Ful­ham and now Chelsea so what­ever the foot­ball odds say I believe there is a chance, even if it is a small, for a Cham­pi­onship side to win the tournament.

Chances are that one will reach the semi-finals, Wycombe being the last side to do it although it was a 100–1 shot that they would make all the way, whilst Wat­ford nar­rowly missed out in 2005 to Liverpool.

So lets hope the upsets con­tinue for the neu­tral, obvi­ously if your side is still left in the com­pe­ti­tion and isn’t in the Cham­pi­onship you won’t be hop­ing for the same thing. Every­one else will be hop­ing for a repeat of this years FA Cup, albeit a bet­ter game to watch than that dull affair!

Tagged as: Burnley, Carling Cup, Championship, Chelsea, Derby, Premier League, watford