Dean Lewington admitted in a post-match interview on Saturday that, despite a good win away at Portsmouth, that he was not really enjoying the role as interim MK Dons manager. No doubt the 38-year-old still has it in his mind to get as close to 1000 club games as possible, currently standing on 902.

However, he will need to be on his game as boss here. MK Dons have a real struggle for survival in League One, a surprising one as pre-season they were fancied for promotion by many. Performances have been generally poor this season, and results have been worse, which is ultimately why Liam Manning was released as manager despite him being lauded as one of the biggest talents in the EFL as recently as the summer.

Leicester are in a prime position to take advantage of the disruption around the club at the moment. Coming off a long break it is possible that some of the players could be rusty, but also they will be physically fresh. Leicester play in the Premier League on Boxing Day but there is enough recovery time between this match and hosting Newcastle on Monday for Brendan Rodgers to name a very strong side.

In the previous round, Rodgers went with a hybrid first choice and reserve XI, which, if he repeated that tactic here, should still be good enough to win the game. Leicester were one of the Premier League form teams going into the World Cup break and they were in decent goalscoring form. Excluding their match against Manchester City, they had gone 2,4,2,3,2 in goalscoring before the break. The 3 was against Newport County in the EFL Cup, they amassed 23 shots from 78% possession and Jamie Vardy was on the scoresheet twice.

Whilst Leicester are unlikely to dominate possession to that extent at Stadium:MK, Dons tend to play very good possession football on their day, it is a sign of intent of how much Leicester are committed to playing in this competition and a place in the last 8 is likely to entice Leicester quite a lot.

Newcastle have been simply superb in the Premier League so far this season. Their record at St. James’ Park is intimidating and no doubt Eddie Howe will be focused on returning to domestic action in the same way that they attacked the first part of the season.

However, at the same time, that focus is bound to be more on the Premier League than the EFL Cup. Qualification for the Champions League seems to be a genuinely realistic possibility for the Magpies and undoubtedly their owners would love to see that happen, probably ahead of schedule.

Eddie Howe is also a manager who traditionally uses the League Cup, and indeed the FA Cup, as a chance for rotation. Usually this is a full rotation, or at least it was when he was Bournemouth manager. In the third round of this competition it was a half-rotation, but they only squeezed through against a similarly rotated Crystal Palace side, on penalties.

Newcastle are priced very short for this match. Bournemouth will come up to the North East having had the same sort of preparation as their hosts, and no doubt Gary O’Neil will feel that he has something to prove. His defensive record as Bournemouth boss has been much improved compared to Scott Parker’s early tenure and the game plan will probably be to be very tight and hit on the break.

Even if these tactics fail to produce a win, Bournemouth are that large underdogs for this match that we can cover the draw and a narrow loss at an acceptable price. Their 4-1 win in the last round was achieved using a fully rotated side, it will be interesting to observe how this fixture is approached. There has been a virus in the Bournemouth camp recently so that doesn’t help in terms of predicting the team, but the tactics are likely to be the same regardless.