Is the Carling Cup finally being taken seriously?

After this week’s fourth round Carling Cup ties, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool progressed and they now occupy five of the eight quarter-final places.

This is the first time these Premier League ‘heavyweights’ have all been this far in the competition at the same time in a number of years. So is the Carling Cup finally gaining some credibility?

Liverpool and Arsenal in particular are taking the competition very seriously as they have gone six and seven years respectively, without any silverware. Liverpool have in recent years, played second string sides in the competition and been punished for it, most notably against Northampton Town last season.

But this season they have consistently played a strong outfit in every round, even in the second round tie against Exeter, surprisingly. To put it into perspective for Liverpool, their top scorer Luis Suarez has played in all three of their Carling Cup ties.

The Uruguayan has scored 3 times in the cup, including a brace against Stoke on Wednesday to send the reds through almost single-handedly.

Arsenal came close to ending their trophy hoodoo at Wembley last season in the Carling Cup final, but they lost out to Birmingham City, a defeat which still hurts the Gunners and they are desperate to make it second time lucky this season by going all the way and winning it.

Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas is very much like his mentor Jose Mourinho, as he wants to win every competition he competes in. He won a quadruple of the Super Cup, the Portuguese League, the Europa League and the Portguese Cup with Porto last season, which shows how seriously he takes every competition.

The Carling Cup was the first trophy Jose Mourinho won at Chelsea and it was the springboard for the Portuguese tactician to achieve greater things at Stamford Bridge and Villas-Boas would love to achieve the same feat.

Manchester United have won the Carling Cup three times over the last six years, which shows that they usually take the competition seriously and that they have the squad to get through the early rounds. Sir Alex Ferguson tends to play second string sides until they get into the quarter-finals and begin to face stiff opposition.

After spending hundreds of millions over the past few years Manchester City have the best squad in the country at the moment, which means they can compete on every front this season. After their 6-1 thumping of rivals Man United last weekend, they made eleven changes for their tie at Wolves on Wednesday night.

It didn’t make any difference as they ran out 5-2 winners at Molineux and if Manchester City revert to their first team for the rounds to come, they will should be the favourites to win the cup.

With Blackburn, Cardiff and Crystal Palace making up the remainder of the quarter-final teams, we are guaranteed at least one ‘big’ game between the five big sides still left in the competition.

With no disrespect to Blackburn, Palace and Cardiff, the Premier League’s big sides will want to draw one of them, as they would fancy their chances of a place in the semi-final.

But it promises to be an interesting Carling Cup for the remainder of the season, the quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the final should be exciting with the country’s big teams still involved and hungry for silverware.

Twitter: @TariqSaleh21

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