I'm unsure if this discussion thread is an appropriate venue to delve into the Carabao Cup. Yesterday witnessed some truly surprising football outcomes in the matches involving Chelsea vs. Brighton and Manchester City vs. Newcastle. Aside from acknowledging Newcastle's presence in the Champions League, it seems plausible that other teams intentionally opted for early exits to alleviate the burden of participating in numerous competitions throughout the season.
Every experience coach in the EPL would definitely have titles he should priotize and from the manner Manchester City played yesterday night it's obvious Pep Gardiola is one of those coaches that is not interested in the Carobao Cup competition as there are more other serious business to attend to like the UCL and EPL and if players are overworked with many competitions a lot of key players might be affected with fatigue and that's not good. That's why I wasn't surprised at all seeing how Newcastle were kind of dominating the game last night unlike how it were when they played City in the EPL.
For Chelsea they have nothing to worry about and imo they are one of the big teams that will be showing more interest and energy in this competition this season as they have only the EPL with no European competition this season so the Carabao Cup competition is a plus for them. They just have to take the opportunity and if they continue in this winning spirit they have started with Brighton. Last night a few Chelsea players showed some impressive performance and we will love to see same displaced more impressively with results in the EPL too.