Brian Barry-Murphy says Cardiff City’s clash with Chelsea is “everything you want” | OneFootball

Cardiff City boss Brian Barry-Murphy is savouring a reunion with Enzo Maresca and is aiming for third victory over Chelsea in the League Cup, saying that the opportunity to play one of the best teams in the country is “everything you want”.

Cardiff have already beaten Chelsea twice in the League Cup both in 1980 and 1986 and are attempting to deliver a Carabao Cup shock against the Blues.

The Bluebirds have enjoyed a fantastic season so far: they are currently top of League One, and even making it to the last eight of this competition marks a huge achievement.

Reflecting on this and the mood around the club ahead of such a clash in his pre-match press conference, Barry-Murphy made it clear he understands the gravity of the occasion.

“The anticipation for the game since the draw was made has been everywhere,” he said. “Luckily, we have tried to detach ourselves from that as much as possible whilst focusing on the league campaign, but now that it’s here, I think that the game is going to be incredibly exciting for everyone.”

The Bluebirds go into the match on the back of three consecutive victories in the League, with wins over Doncaster, Stevenage and Huddersfield Town.

Barry-Murphy knows Chelsea boss Maresca through their time together at Manchester City, and is aware of the threat that his opponents bring to the table.

“For myself and the players we still want to show ourselves in the best light and give a good account of ourselves when competing against a side who are the Club World Cup champions. We want to do our best and prepare properly for this game,” he said.

“It’s everything you want. We all have aspirations of testing ourselves against those at the highest level of the game,” he added.

The match tomorrow evening is completely sold-out with supporters relishing the occasion.

Barry-Murphy added: “We understand for ourselves that we’re a very big club with a huge supporter base.”

“We will have to try to give those fans something to feel exhilarated by tomorrow night,” he continued.

“Every game that we have played in the competition we have tried to be on the front foot as much as possible, and to show ourselves in the most positive light. It’s what the supporters want to see both away and at home.

“The level of competition you face means how often that occurs in the game is different. For example against Burnley we were very proactive and very aggressive, but there were spells in the second half where we had to defend deep.”

Cardiff City will be aiming to reach the semi-finals of the EFL Cup for the first time since the 2011/12 season, when they eventually finished as runners up in the competition after losing to Liverpool in the final.

Should they reach the final four, they’ll face one of Manchester City, Brentford, Newcastle United, Fulham, Arsenal and Crystal Palace.

“In every game each team poses different challenges and a team of this calibre is clearly going to have the ball for spells of the game, and we have to show the different facets of our game to be in the right shape to compete with them,” Barry-Murphy said.

“That’s something we can do, we have good players ourselves and tomorrow night is about trying to show that as much as possible.”

The match will be live on Sky Sports Main Event and will kick off at 20:00 GMT on Tuesday 16th December.