Manchester City vs Liverpool Capital One Cup Final: Pellegrini keep faiths with Caballero to the finish

Manager will not bring in Hart for Wembley despite understudy’s erratic displays

Wilfredo Caballero during training ahead of the Capital One Cup Final. (Reuters)

Manuel Pellegrini will risk Manchester City’s best hope of silverware this season by leaving England goalkeeper Joe Hart on the substitutes’ bench for Sunday's Capital One Cup final against Liverpool, choosing instead to keep faith with Argentine understudy Willy Caballero.

The City manager, who will relinquish his post in the summer following confirmation of the appointment of Pep Guardiola on a three-year contract, has selected Caballero for every round of the competition so far this season.

Despite the 34-year-old’s erratic performance in last Sunday’s 5-1 FA Cup defeat at Chelsea, Pellegrini has insisted he will not restore Hart to the team at Wembley simply because silverware will be at stake.

“I don’t change the way I think,” Pellegrini said. “We won this cup with [Costel] Pantilimon playing the whole competition [in 2014], so it is no reason to change.

“Every manager can think which is the best way to win a trophy. I manage a team in my way of thinking that is the best way to do it and I don’t change it. It’s not an obligation to my word, it’s an obligation to think that we are doing it one way in that tournament and it’s important to try to finish until the end in the same way.”

With City out of the FA Cup and trailing Premier League leaders Leicester City by six points, tomorrow’s showpiece against Liverpool is likely to offer a less hazardous route to a trophy than the prospect of seeing off the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich to win the Champions League.

So the match matters at Wembley, but despite Caballero’s performance at Chelsea and similarly erratic performances this season against Tottenham Hotspur and Everton, Pellegrini dismissed suggestions that there is any risk attached to selecting the former Malaga goalkeeper.

“I answered already your question,” Pellegrini said. “I know the mentality of all the players, so it doesn’t matter.

“You think as a manager how best to manage the squad and not just the team. We are going to play in our final and we must be focused on our final.”

For Caballero, however, the opportunity to emerge from Hart’s shadow to play in a Wembley final is one he insists he is prepared for.

“It is my desire to play in this final and I am ready,” Caballero said. “Do I deserve to play? It could be, but I have been thinking about this game for a long time since we won against Everton in the semi-final. It’s not easy to be in my position, but you have to accept it because that’s the life of a second keeper. It’s hard, but we have to be ready and hopefully I get the opportunity.

“But Manuel [Pellegrini] has given me the confidence by playing me in this kind of game. That’s been really important for me, but for him it’s important to win.

“To be a big team, you need to win trophies, so that’s what we need to do now.”

With only Kevin De Bruyne ruled out of Pellegrini’s first-choice starting team, having injured knee ligaments in the semi-final victory against Everton, the key selection dilemma for the Chilean is likely to centre on whether to select former Liverpool winger Raheem Sterling ahead of Jesus Navas.

Since completing his acrimonious £49m transfer from Anfield last summer, Sterling has struggled for consistency, after some impressive early-season form. But if he picks the England player to face his former club, Pellegrini insists Sterling will have nothing to prove to Liverpool or their supporters.

“I don’t think he has anything to prove,” Pellegrini said. “For him, that motivation is very good. I hope he will be focused just on having a good performance and not thinking about the boos he receives during the game or what happened in the past. He is now a Manchester City player and he will try to win for us.”

Sterling, who has scored 10 goals in all competitions for City this season, faces a torrid reception from the Liverpool fans, having claimed he left Anfield to “win trophies and play in finals”. But Pellegrini insists he has no complaints about Sterling’s contribution so far at City.

“If we win a couple of titles and Raheem has an important performance, it will be a good season for him,” the manager said. “But I don’t think it’s good to analyse his season in this moment. He has done good things, bad things and was very important the other day [against Dynamo Kiev]. He is a very young player so must improve every year.

“If you ask me if I’m happy to bring him here this year then yes, I am very happy. He continues to improve and give a lot of things to our squad.

“For every player, it is never comfortable to play against an old team. Everyone has links, friends inside the club. But he is a professional player. He came here to win titles and I’m sure he will have a very good performance.”