Away second leg generally proves second best

Namely, by clinching a place in the League’s showpiece occasion as the away team in the second leg.

So big a factor has home advantage been, in fact, that 10 of the past 12 finalists have booked their place at Wembley on home soil.

Chelsea, in triumphing 1-0 at Everton to seal a 3-1 aggregate victory, bucked the trend during 2007-08, while the other club to prevail in a second leg away from home during the past six years is Tottenham Hotspur.

Even then, the London club came within a whisker of crashing out at the hands of Burnley four years ago.

After beating the Clarets 4-1 in the first leg at White Hart Lane, Spurs seemed odds-on certainties to reach the final only for Robbie Blake and Chris McCann to raise hopes of an upset.

The Championship side then made it 3-0 on the night and 4-4 on aggregate when Jay Rodriquez scored with two minutes remaining.

With away goals in the competition not coming into play until the end of extra-time, that meant an extra 30 minutes and, if no additional goals had been scored, Burnley would have gone through.

Sadly for the Lancashire club, Roman Pavlyuchenko broke the deadlock on 118 minutes.

Jermain Defoe then added another shortly before the end to clinch a 6-4 aggregate triumph for Spurs.

Had Burnley held out in extra-time, that would have represented the biggest turnaround of the past 10 years in League Cup semi-finals.

Instead, the biggest first leg advantage that has been overturned is one goal – something achieved by Liverpool (versus Sheffield United, 2003), Manchester United (v Derby County, 2009, and v Manchester City, 2010), Birmingham City (v West Ham United, 2011) and Cardiff City a year ago against Crystal Palace.

Bradford’s opponents tonight, Aston Villa, though, did come close in 2003-04 when, after losing the first leg 5-2 at the Reebok, the Midlands side hit back to win 2-0 at home in the second leg.

The only other fourth tier club to compete in a League Cup semi-final over the past decade is Wycombe Wanderers, who, after drawing 1-1 with Chelsea at Adams Park in 2007, crashed to a 4-0 defeat in the return.

For the best coverage of tonight’s second leg encounter at Villa Park, follow Richard Sutcliffe and Leon Wobschall in tomorrow’s Yorkshire Post.