They'll probably show Arsenal v Chelsea and United v Norwich. It's rare that TV companies don't show United in the cups no matter how tedious their game looks. But yeah, we'd better be on a Wednesday this time, playing on Sunday then Tuesday is **** for both of us. It's hard to tell what kind of side we'll put out but my suspicion is AVB really fancies winning this so I don't expect youngsters to be used that aren't normally in the first team squad anyway. Our game in the Europa is away in Moldova so, and I'm pretty much guessing here, I'm not sure if we'll be taking a full first team there anyway, after all a loss in the group stages doesn't put us out of the Europa League but it would in the League Cup. AVB could easily have changed all 11 for our game against Villa but I think it's telling that he kept 3 of the starters against Cardiff in the line up despite saying he has concerns about the risks of injury playing 2 games in 3 days.
It's more of a deal for Spurs, having the Europa league the week before and after, guess it depends what team you play there but I couldn't see your 2nd string coming away with anything but 3 points so it probably won't be the key players. As far as we're concerned we have no midweek game the week before or after, pretty much all of our players are used to playing sat - tues - sat from time in the championship and our opponents the next game (Sunderland) will also be playing in the cup that week so we've no disadvantage there and no reason why we shouldn't field a full strength side. I'm hoping we give you a good game, it'd be nice to go on a good cup run, it breeds confidence.
That Sunderland game is miles bigger than the cup or the league match v Spurs. I'd prefer us to concentrate on that. If anything comes from the two Spurs fixtures it's a bonus, i say.
