Manuel Pellegrini: Winning titles won’t guarantee my Manchester City future

Replacing him is going to be a big test for Martinez.

“I think we are on the right track in having a team that excites us”, said Martinez.

“It’s no coincidence that we have so many players being successful at our football club through the presence of someone like that”.

Everton withstood City’s early huffing and puffing without much threat and eventually seized control of midfield with Mo Besic and Gareth Barry, 35 next month, both excellent.

Martinez’s side have reached the last four of the competition for the first time since 2008 and the Everton manager is determined to end the trophy drought. He wants to be the best in the world and you can see the way he is focused and wants to help the team and take responsibility is quite impressive.

Everton know that a draw at the Etihad Stadium will suffice and present the Merseyside club with the first League Cup final appearance since 1984.

“It is more than happiness”, he said.

The League Cup is a competition that the Chilean is bound to be fond of, given that it provided him with his first taste of glory on English soil in March 2014 when City overturned a one-goal deficit to beat Sunderland 3-1. “I am very, very proud of the performance”.

“I’m disappointed at the result, of course, because you can not be happy if you don’t win the game but I think we didn’t deserve to lose”, said the City manager.

“We faced Manchester City in August and were missing something”.

“Now we have gone very young with huge potential to go beyond that ceiling, and there has been investment in that potential so we will get the rewards from it”. Internally it shows how far we’ve come and the real intent of this team to be successful.

City boss Manuel Pellegrini has injury worries of his own after Eliaquim Mangala was substituted at half-time to join fellow centre-back Vincent Kompany on the sidelines.

“The first goal is absolutely offside, Lukaku is one yard in front of Caballero and he makes the movement and then there is a clear penalty on Jesus Navas”, he added.