Manchester City won the 54th edition of the Football League Cup on Sunday as three second-half goals saw them come from behind to beat Sunderland 3-1 in an entertaining final.
This season's tournament, which started 209 days ago with Preston North End's dramatic 1-0 victory over Lancashire rivals Blackpool, certainly provided plenty of thrills and spills.
With the competition now over, Sports Mole got its calculator out to put together a host of facts and figures. Check them out below.
311: The number of goals (not including penalty shootouts) that were scored during 93 matches. That is an average of 3.34 goals per game - marginally down from last season's figure of 3.45.
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9: Nine of those goals came during Norwich City's 6-3 second-round triumph against Bury – the highest scoring game in this season's League Cup. The all-time record for most goals in one match still belongs to Arsenal's 7-5 extra-time win at Reading in October 2012.
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6: Neither netted in the final, but Man City strike duo Alvaro Negredo and Edin Dzeko topped the individual scoring charts with six goals each. £20m summer signing Negredo scored five of his goals during the 9-0 two-legged hammering of West Ham United, which set a new record for the biggest aggregate win in a semi-final. Meanwhile, Dzeko put two past West Ham and also scored during his side's wins over Leicester City, Newcastle United and Wigan Athletic. Lee Tomlin finished in third, having notched five goals - all in August - for Peterborough United. The 25-year-old, who has since moved to Middlesbrough, bagged a brace in a 5-1 win at Colchester United, before notching a hat-trick in the 6-0 thrashing of Reading.
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2: Although Man City's explosive attacking exploits will steal the headlines, their rock-solid defence was perhaps even more impressive. Just two goals were scored past Manuel Pellegrini's men in the whole tournament - the joint-fewest conceded by any League Cup winner, equalling the record set by Chelsea in 2007. Leicester midfielder Lloyd Dyer and Sunderland's Fabio Borini were the only players to breach City's backline. Romanian goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon played in five of City's six games, keeping four clean sheets.
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19: There are no replays in the League Cup, so extra time was played in 19 of the tournament's 93 games. Nine matches, including Tottenham Hotspur's 8-7 spot-kick win over Hull City in the last 16, went to a penalty shootout.
1: Barnsley scraped into round two by beating Scunthorpe United 5-4 on penalties following a goalless 120 minutes of football on August 6. That match was the only 0-0 draw (including extra time) in this season's League Cup.
8: Man City are the eighth team to have won the League Cup on three or more occasions. Liverpool are the most successful club in the tournament's history, with eight titles, while Aston Villa have lifted the trophy five times. Chelsea, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest and Spurs are all four-time winners. Leicester, like the Citizens, have tasted success three times.
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100,000: Cup finals are about much more than prize money. That is just as well because Man City's financial reward from the Football League for winning the first Wembley showpiece of the year will be a very modest £100,000 – a third of Wayne Rooney's new weekly wage at Old Trafford. The winners of the FA Cup will receive over £2m, while City have already earned in excess of £8m from UEFA for their performances in this season's Champions League – and they are not even in the quarter-finals!
1,364,331: The accumulative attendance of all 93 games was 1,364,331. Just over six per cent of that figure came from the 84,697-strong crowd at the final - up 2,100 from last season's showpiece between Swansea City and Bradford City. However, it was still the second-lowest attendance at a League Cup final since the event returned to London in 2008 following its seven-year stay at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.
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1,562: The lowest attendance at a match in this season's League Cup was 1,562. Those fans certainly got their money's worth though, witnessing Cheltenham Town edge past Crawley Town in a seven-goal thriller in round one.
Robert Summerscales
