Ashton Gate prepares for the ultimate apathy

Welcome to the League Cup, a competition designed specifically to remind us that Bristol City and Stoke City still exist. While the rest of the world is busy worrying about Champions League permutations, we turn our attention to the West Country for a clash that promises all the intensity of a lukewarm Bovril on a Tuesday night.

Bristol City, the perpetual residents of the Championship’s "waiting room," finished a agonizing 7th last season. They are the footballing equivalent of a student who consistently gets a B+ but never actually graduates. They have enough quality to annoy the big boys but apparently not enough to actually join them. Playing at Ashton Gate is their comfort zone, a place where dreams of the Premier League go to take a very long, very comfortable nap.

Then we have Stoke City. Oh, Stoke. A club that has spent the last five years trying to figure out if they want to be a football team or a social experiment in how many managers one board can fire before the fans stop showing up. Finishing 18th last season was quite an achievement, considering they spent most of the year looking like they’d rather be literally anywhere else. They arrive in Bristol with the momentum of a shopping trolley with a wonky wheel.

The stakes? A place in the next round where they’ll inevitably get hammered 5-0 by Manchester City’s Under-12s. Bristol will try to play "the right way" under Liam Manning, while Stoke will likely try to remember which direction they’re supposed to be attacking. Expect a lot of sideways passing, at least one spectacular miss from three yards out, and a atmosphere that screams WE'D RATHER BE AT THE PUB.

It won't be pretty, it won't be fast, but it will be over eventually.

Prediction: Bristol City 1–0 Stoke City