Leicester City and Aston Villa will be aiming to put one foot in the Carabao Cup final as they meet in the first-leg of the semi-final at the King Power Stadium on Wednesday evening.

The hosts, who haven’t reached a final of any competition since actually winning the League Cup back in 2000, will be aiming to rack up a comfortable victory in home soil against the Premier League strugglers. Meanwhile, Dean Smith’s men, who themselves have the most recent final experience having been beaten by Arsenal in the FA Cup final back in 2015, will be attempting to take back an advantage back for the second-leg at Villa Park at the end of January.

It is the Foxes who are currently the most favoured to progress this time around and can be backed at a price of 1/4 with William Hill. Elsewhere, the Villans sit some way behind at odds of 11/4 to reach the final.

An aspect that will give Brendan Rodgers’ troops confidence is their recent form against the West-Midlanders. In the last five meetings between the two sides, Villa have only won one, that coming back in February 2015 with a 2-1 victory in the FA Cup. There was a distinct gap between the two earlier this season as they met in the Premier League at Villa Park, with Leicester waltzing back across the Midlands with a comprehensive 4-1 victory. Once again, Leicester are massively fancied to earn another win with odds of 2/7 with Paddy Power. Villa are underdogs at 8/1, with a draw priced at 9/2.

Despite goals having become commonplace in most meetings between the two sides, the exception to that rule is in fact the League Cup. In seven clashes in the competition between the two teams, both sides have found the net on only one occasion. Both teams to not score during the match on Wednesday is at a price of 10/11 with Betfred.

Leicester will be boosted by the return of forward Jamie Vardy for the match after he recovered from a calf injury. However, the Foxes lost centre-backs Filip Benkovic and Wes Morgan in their recent win against Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup. The duo join Daniel Amartey and Matty James on the treatment table.

Aston Villa have also had their significant injury blows, with the likes of Wesley and Tom Heaton having been ruled out for the rest of the season. John McGinn, Matt Targett, Keinan Davies and Jed Steer all remain ruled out.