Jose Mourinho meets Frank Lampard in the dugout for the first time! It just doesn’t seem to be a happy camp at Manchester United at the moment and there seem to be a lot of mixed messages coming out.
It’s close to a must-win game for United. They need to take this seriously and play a strong team. It’s pretty much a free hit for Derby and Lampard will want to have a bit of a go at Old Trafford. I can’t quite see an upset here though.
This is juicy isn’t it, especially because they are playing each other in the Premier League at the weekend as well. Whoever loses this game will say the cup wasn’t the priority and has no relevance to Saturday, and whoever wins will definitely use it going into that game.
Neither side will want to lose but I just think the depth of Liverpool this season will be what sees them through to victory at Anfield.
Millwall are at the bottom end of the Sky Bet Championship and Neil Harris is not at all happy with his players at the moment, which is rare because he normally gets total commitment from that group.
Fulham have made a lot of new signings so whatever Slavisa Jokanovic decide to do I would expect it to be a very strong team and they should have too much quality for Millwall. Away win for me.
It almost doesn’t matter what side Manchester City put out because they will still be expected to win this game comfortably.
It’s a nice game for Oxford because they’ve got very little to lose, although Karl Robinson won’t want to get an absolute smashing, which City are capable of delivering to anyone. This should be a very straightforward win for Pep Guardiola’s side.
There has been a lot of talk about how poor Manchester United were at the weekend, but people are forgetting that they were made to look poor by a very good team in Wolves.
I covered this fixture in the Premier League in August. Leicester won it but Wolves were the better team that day and lost to two unfortunate goals. The only negative from this season so far is that they haven’t been ruthless enough in front of goal, but I still fancy them to sneak this one.
This game very much hinges on Roy Hodgson’s team selection, and in particular whether or not he chooses to rest Wilfried Zaha, which you’d expect him to do. The statistics show that without him they are simply not as potent.
West Brom have got quality players and some of them could easily still be playing in the Premier League, so it would not be an enormous shock if they won. I think Hodgson will prioritise the Premier League and I fancy the Baggies to nick this.