FMFA Manager

Sunderland - Newcastle United

Pretty bloody tough group to get drawn into, or the second toughest anyway - there's that group with 3 conference league sides in there all looking to get Super League scalps, that's probably the toughest to have to go up against clubs trying to giant kill every round. Looking closer at Group H there's a non zero chance QPR might not get out of it when you look at those three CL sides...

Liverpool would probably be favourites to win our group and then from there, it's probably a dead heat as to who the second-best team would be out of us, Manchester City and the horsepunchers. Probably down to us and City if we are honest. BUt look, same old narrative, start the group strong at home, be resilient and hard to break down away, grind out some points and look to qualify from the group stages. Maybe see about winning something in my second season like all big Aussie managers do!

Hartlepool United - Chelsea

If not for the result against Solihull I'd be feeling far more confident about this tie in terms of being able to grind out a favourable result and duke it out with Chelsea, and then maybe be able to sneak some points against Fulham and Manchester United. Having a group phase going whilst having inconsistent league form is going to be tough on us and we will need to be careful about managing fitness and injuries within the squad.

We are at home so if we can get a good turnout Wednesday night for Chelsea - and we should! - anything is possible in terms of a result.

Manchester United - Fulham

we have fulham at home in this cup tie i will rotate my team and hopefully we can win this game and get off to a great start