By Ian KingBoth City & Brighton have had a wobble following excellent starts to the seasonManchester City’s defeat at Aston Villa on Saturday lunchtime was their second in their last three games, having also lost at home to PSG in the Champions League the week before last. And they now need to bounce back from that with a tricky match in the League Cup against Brighton. It’s a small wobble, following a perfect start to the season. Brighton & Hove Albion have already knocked Manchester United out of this competition this season, but their excellent start to this season has also taken a tiny knock over the last few days. They were unable to break down the Czech side Jablonec in the Europa Conference League on Thursday night, while on Sunday they went down 2-0 at Liverpool despite putting in an excellent performance at Anfield. It’s been two and half years since City last beat BrightonOver the last two seasons, Brighton have had a surprisingly clear upper hand in this fixture. The last two sets of league matches between these two have ended in two wins for Albion and two draws, with Manchester City’s last win coming in April 2024. The two sides have only ever been drawn to play each other in the League Cup once before and Brighton won that too. The two sides met in the second round of the competition in September 2008, while Brighton were a League One club, and they won the tie on penalty kicks following a 2-2 draw in front of a crowd of 8,700 at their former home, the Withdean Stadium. Different times. That game took place on the day after City’s transfer of ownership to the Abu Dhabi United group was completed.Floyd Samba is one for the future who’s already impressed in this year’s EFL CupThe early stages of this competition are often used by managers to give their fringe players a run out, and one player who could feature in this tie is Floyd Samba, who scored twice in City’s 5-0 win against Norwich City in the last round. The 17-year-old has also been playing for City’s U19 this season, and played just over an hour of their Champions League win against AEK Athens last week, so should have another opportunity to prove himself here. Brighton played a strong team in the last round at Old Trafford. With the club now having established themselves in the Premier League, they can now start taking the domestic trophies seriously, and one first-teamer who we may expect to see is Jack Hinshelwood. He’s already missed two months of this season with an injury and has been easing himself back in since earlier this month, and it’s been a successful reintegration. He scored on his return against Kauno Zalgiris in the Europa Conference League and followed that up by scoring again after being introduced as a substitute towards the end of their 5-0 hammering of Crystal Palace. Brighton’s injury list is considerably longer than Manchester City’sWith both teams competing in Europe this season the schedules are packed, and we can expect to see changes from the teams that played in the Premier League at the weekend. In this respect, Manchester City have far more wiggle room than Brighton. They’re only missing Antoine Semenyo, who’s expected to be out until December with a leg injury.Brighton, however, have a growing list of casualties. Evan Ferguson, Stefanos Tzimas, Kaoru Mitoma and Femi Azeez will all be absent, but Brighton are also assessing Pascal Struijk, Mats Wieffer, Yakuba Minteh, Zadok Yohanna, Ferdi Kadioglu and Chema Andres before the match. Given the extent of their growing injury list, Fabian Hürzeler may have a tricky time for this match, balancing the players at his disposal with giving some of his players a little rest time.Brighton have had their wobble, but they could cause an upset at The EtihadSilverware is silverware, but given the intensity of the modern game and how stretched the calendar has become, it’s difficult to believe that this particular tie will be at the top of either team’s priority list, especially considering that they’re both back here to do this all again in the Premier League as soon as Saturday afternoon. Manchester City’s performance at Aston Villa hinted at a team for whom the adrenaline rush of ‘responding to the charges’ may already be wearing off. They’ve won this competition seven times since they last played Brighton in it, a striking reminder of the distorting effect that their alleged bending of the financial rules have had on football in England. Brighton have something approaching the opposite problem. Formed in 1901, they have yet to win a major trophy in 125 years, and frustration over this has started to bubble a little on the south coast recently, with bitter rivals Crystal Palace having won the FA Cup and the Europa Conference League in the last couple of years. The desire to win a major trophy is starting to become a need. They’ve had a bit of a wobble in their last couple of matches, but they did play well at Liverpool at the weekend. Their injury position may have a slightly distorting effect on this match, leaving Fabian Hürzeler with little alternative but to play the team at his disposal. They played a strong side at Old Trafford in the last round and got the result, but Hürzeler may have to shuffle, with a busy couple of weeks to come ahead of the international break. But I’m going to go out on a limb and predict an upset here. 2-1 to Brighton, and Manchester City to be left with just the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup to concentrate on. Then it’ll all be back here at 3pm the following Saturday to do it all again in the Premier League. (Cover image from IMAGO)You can follow every game in the Premier League with FotMob – featuring deep stats coverage, xG, and player ratings. Download the free app here.Add FotMob as a preferred news source on Google by clicking – here.