Regardless of the fact his team were expected to lose against Manchester City, Wednesday night’s 9-0 defeat will have hurt Nigel Clough and his Burton Albion players.They would have travelled to Manchester with the intention of keeping the scoreline as low as possible ahead of the semi-final second leg at the Pirelli Stadium in two weeks’ time.But City were on top form and duly hammered their League One opponents, leaving themselves with one foot in the Carabao Cup final in the process.Gabriel Jesus helped himself to four goals, while Kevin De Bruyne, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Phil Foden, Kyle Walker and Riyad Mahrez also got in on the act.This was a ruthless display from the Premier League champions, who are taking this tournament extremely seriously.To his credit, Clough came out and spoke to Sky Sports following his team’s heavy defeat.And it was great to see that the result hadn’t affected his sense of humour.Football fans loved his extremely honest and often humorous post-match interview - and here are some of the highlights…"We didn't expect anything less,” he told Sky Sports. "The quality they have out there and the gulf between the teams, we actually feared it could be more."Asked to name the point he feared things could get messy…."When the draw was made and when we beat Middlesbrough!”Asked if part of him wish Burton hadn’t reached the semi-finals…“No, not at all. We’ve reached history with the club by getting to the last four of a major cup competition and it wasn’t about tonight, it was about the achievement of actually getting here.“Once we saw the three teams, we were always going to be in trouble. It was just to what degree.”Asked if there were any positives…“Yeah, we kept going. At the end the crowd were chanting ‘we want 10’ and our lads are fighting to stop them getting 10. That’s a positive for us.”Erm… yeah, sort of, Nigel.Asked what Pep Guardiola said to him at full-time…"He said come in and have a glass of wine,” Clough added. “I hope he's got more than a glass!"Watch the interview in full here…

There were definitely shades of his legendary father, Brian, there.

Here’s how football fans reacted to Clough’s interview…