Coventry City v Bristol City

This all-Championship tie should be an entertaining one on Wednesday night in the EFL Cup. The Robins have been singled out for goals in the Championship predictions and duly delivered on the weekend as they went down 2-3 at home to Sunderland. 

However, on this occasion, their chances to get a positive result are going to be helped by two things. The Sky Blues are likely to make a full rotation of changes. Mark Robins did this last season, albeit against League Two Northampton Town, and Coventry went out in the opening round.

Nigel Pearson is in need of a win to try and build some momentum for the season. Though they were unlucky on opening day, the Bristol City faithful will have been more concerned at how they threw a lead away against Sunderland on Saturday and Pearson has yet to build up a strong cache of support for his reign.

The dynamic for this match has changed massively with the stadium change as well. With Coventry’s pitch continuing to be unfit for purpose after being used for rugby 7s at the Commonwealth Games the compromise for this fixture was to play the game at Burton Albion’s Pirelli Stadium. Obviously this is less than ideal for Coventry and takes away their home advantage. The fact that the Sky Blues didn’t play at the weekend does slightly temper my confidence for a full rotation, but with Millwall away coming up on Saturday Robins will want a fully-fit and energised set of players for that fixture.

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Blackburn v Hartlepool

This match is a repeat of a recent pre-season friendly, but with a few differences. Firstly, that match was played at the Suit Direct Stadium rather than Ewood Park, and, also, neither side was at full strength. However, I was there in the stadium to see Rovers edge the victory that day and it was clear that Rovers had the outstanding footballers in the match and Hartlepool were forced into relying on set pieces and the odd counter attack.

It is unknown to what level Jon Dahl Tomasson will rotate his Blackburn squad at the time of writing. However, with both line-ups so far in the Championship being identical and with West Brom visiting Ewood at the weekend, albeit on Sunday, it is likely that the new man will be eager to test out other options in his squad at this juncture.

However, Rovers are down to the bare bones in central defence. I would suggest that Daniel Ayala still won’t be risked though, so we could see a professional debut for England U17 defender Ash Phillips alongside Scott Wharton. Tayo Edun impressed at the weekend and is likely to come in for Harry Pickering with Callum Brittain having a chance of staying in the side due to lack of other options. More youth is likely to be used further forward with Jake Garrett, Adam Wharton, Tyrhys Dolan, Dilan Markanday and Jack Vale having good shouts to make starts. However, the big one for the fans will be whether Bradley Dack will get his first start of the season, I suspect that he will and will also be named captain for the match.

Hartlepool are yet to score this season, and Blackburn are yet to concede. Undoubtedly Jon Dahl Tomasson will be drilling into his players the importance of keeping this record and continuing those great habits. The squad that the Dane is working with is strong and tight-knit, so the confidence taken from a great start in the league is going to be evident regardless of the players on the pitch.

There is always the outside chance that with a change of forward line that the team could misfire, and despite the impressive start, the xG performance shows that Blackburn have scored 4 goals from around 1.5xG so far so they haven’t created chances at will. So the best way to play this tie, especially with Blackburn being so short in the market already, is to play Both Teams To Score – No. This takes into account Hartlepool’s difficulties and Rovers’ excellent defence whilst bearing in mind the potential changes in the Rovers forward line too.

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Sheffield Wednesday v Sunderland

Looking back to last season’s competition Wednesday again played a Championship club in Huddersfield and Darren Moore decided to play practically a full-strength team. Alex Neil didn’t manage in the EFL Cup last season but in 2019 and 2020 he performed a partial rotation of his Preston North End squad, changing 5/6/7 players from his first team.

Wednesday do have a very strong squad at the moment though so even a partial rotation is likely to still give them a great chance of being the stronger side here. The likes of Dominic Iorfa, George Byers, Tyreeq Bakinson, Jack Hunt and Reece James are all recent regular Championship performers and filled the bench against MK Dons at the weekend. These are the players likely to be rotated in if Moore does decide to change things up here.

Sunderland are starting to get themselves more depth with the signings of Ellis Simms coming in and making an impact. However, a partial rotation for Sunderland is actually likely to cause the team level to drop a bit more than Wednesday. Aji Alese is likely to be making his Sunderland debut, alongside the goalkeeper Alex Bass. This will definitely make the defence weaker, regardless of the potential of these two young players.

We can also bear in mind that Wednesday did finish above Sunderland in League One last year, and the play-off semi-finals were exceptionally tight. If there is a drop-off in level from the Black Cats then that could open the door for the Owls to swoop in.

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