On Wednesday, Nottingham Forest and Manchester United will battle it out at the City Ground in the first leg of their EFL Cup semi-final.

The Red Devils easily dispatched Charlton Athletic in the quarterfinals, while the Tricky Trees advanced thanks to a penalty shootout victory; the two teams will meet again in the return leg at Old Trafford on February 1 for the right to play either Newcastle United or Southampton in the semifinals at Wembley.
After a few months of struggling to integrate their many new players, Nottingham Forest are now possibly only 180 minutes away from a memorable trip to Wembley and have created a large lead above the Premier League drop zone.

Forest had already eliminated Grimsby Town, Tottenham Hotspur, and Blackburn Rovers from the EFL Cup. After 120 minutes, Forest and Wolves had played to a 1-1 tie, but Forest advanced thanks to Dean Henderson's heroic penalty kick saves against Ruben Neves and Joe Hodge.

Forest will try to reach the EFL Cup final for the first time since 1992, when they lost to Manchester United, and Wednesday will mark the four-time winners' first semi-final appearance in 31 years. The injured Henderson, who would not have been able to face his parent club anyway, will watch on with bated breath.

As Sam Surridge equalized Jaidon Anthony's opener for Bournemouth on Saturday, Steve Cooper's team extended their undefeated streak in the Premier League to four games and moved up to 13th position in the standings.

Nottingham Forest are not to be taken lightly, especially as they have played in and won six consecutive EFL Cup semi-final ties, and will be hosting Man United at a stadium where they are unbeaten in eight straight games across all competitions.

Although technically Manchester United may still win four trophies this season, after Saturday's thrilling five-goal thriller against Arsenal, even the most optimistic Red Devils fans would think a run at the Premier League crown is hopeless.

Eddie Nketiah scored twice, and Bukayo Saka scored a sensational goal as the Gunners avenged their lone domestic defeat of the season against the only team to do so. Marcus Rashford and Lisandro Martinez also had outstanding games for their respective teams in what was arguably the best Premier League match of the year.
Despite being 11 points behind the league leaders, who also have a game in hand, Erik ten Hag's club has eliminated Charlton Athletic, Aston Villa, and Burnley to advance to the EFL Cup last four.

In 2017, under Jose Mourinho's leadership, the Red Devils won the English Football League Cup for the fifth time in the club's history. However, since then they have lost twice in the tournament's semi-finals, against Manchester City in 2020 and Manchester City again in 2021.

However, the last five EFL Cup games played away from Old Trafford have all ended in victories for Man United, with the Red Devils also picking up clean sheets in each of the last four of those contests. Just after the holidays, Ten Hag's squad rolled over Forest 3-0 at Old Trafford.