The Blues will be looking to return to winning ways following defeat at Old Trafford over the weekend, and Enzo Maresca believes our entry into the League Cup is the perfect opportunity to carry forward momentum into the next few weeks on all fronts across domestic and European competitions.

Our head coach is embracing the opportunity that the Carabao Cup will provide, with the competition offering a chance to progress towards another trophy and a moment to rotate and rest others during a busy schedule against difficult opponents.

‘I embrace it – it’s a competition,’ the Italian said during his pre-match press conference on Monday. ‘You have more than one compared to Italy, but it’s another competition.

‘Personally, I would prefer to play against a Premier League team rather than a League One team because these types of games worry me the most.

‘Sometimes you can underestimate, and football is football. It’s something we need to avoid and try to do our job and then switch focus to Saturday’s game against Brighton.’

For the match-up at the LNER Stadium, our head coach explained that one area of the pitch where he will urge caution is with the defence.

Levi Colwill remains a long-term absentee, while Wesley Fofana only started his second match of the season against Manchester United last time out. Tosin Adarabioyo and Trevoh Chalaboh could again be called upon to feature at the heart of the defence.

He added: ‘I would love to rest [Tosin and Chalobah] because they deserve to rest. The problem is that we have Wes, who is only playing after a long time out. Some of them need to play.’