On Sky
Sunderland are set to take on Chelsea for the second time in just a few weeks, but this time there is a semi final at stake to the winner.
The last time the two clubs met was in the league at the Stadium of Light and Chelsea went home with the points after a 4-3 victory, but it was a close run thing.
So far Sunderland have played all their cup games at home this season while Chelsea have had the more difficult of the passage so far as they have played all their games away from home.
Sunderland go into this game knowing and hoping that the cup is a great leveller as league form would have it that Chelsea would be in for a banker had it been a normal game.
Vital Quotes:
Gus Poyet: “If I start thinking about Norwich [at home on Saturday in the Premier League], it gets difficult to make decisions. But if we want to get out of the relegation zone, then we have to win matches, become winners. We want to win the cup game for that reason. Let`s hope we can beat Chelsea, then we will be very confident for Norwich.”
Sunderland Team News:
Jack Colback will miss out on this one through illness.
The 24-year-old sat out Saturday’s 0-0 Premier League draw at West Ham with a virus and is still recovering, but is expected to be available for Saturday’s home clash with Norwich.
Other than that, Poyet has only goalkeeper Keiren Westwood (shoulder) and defender Carlos Cuellar (hip) unavailable.
Player to watch: Sung-Yong Ki
Ever useful
Chelsea Team News:
Branislav Ivanovic is suspended for Chelsea so Cesar Azpilicueta will switch to right-back, with Ashley Cole at left-back.
Gary Cahill may return in central defence after being rested for the game against Crystal Palace.
Mourinho is likely to make a number of further changes, with Monday’s league clash at Arsenal in mind, while left-back Ryan Bertrand (knee) and midfielder Marco van Ginkel (knee) are out.
Player to watch: Juan Mata
Should play, scored in last round at Arsenal.
Match Facts & Stats
Tonight will see the new goal-line technology system used for the first time in domestic cup football.
The GDS (Goal Decision System) technology was introduced at the Stadium of Light at the start of the current season for use in Barclays Premier League games.
Hawk-Eye`s ground-breaking system will now also be used in the remaining Capital One Cup games at stadia where it is currently installed.
Ref Watch:
The referee for Tuesday Night`s game with Chelsea in the Capital One cup is Anthony Taylor.
The Cheshire based referee was seen twice last season by Sunderland fans, the last of which was the 1-0 defeat at home to Arsenal. That afternoon there was yellow cards for Lee Cattermole, Jack Colback, Seb Larsson and Theo Walcott while Carl Jenkinson was shown two yellows and sent off.
The game before that was the 3-2 victory at Wigan. There were five cards that day, three went to Wigan players and two to Sunderland.
So far this season Taylor has been in charge of 12 games in all competitions, in that time he has shown 40 yellow cards and two reds.
Taylor`s assistants on Tuesday will be Stuart Burt and Matthew Wilkes, the fourth official will be Michael Naylor.
Match Prediction:
1-0 to the Black Cats
Next Fixtures:
Sat 21 Dec 2013 Sunderland v Norwich
If we are going to win this one then I would say it would be 1-0 as well, I dont see this one being high scoring like the last game. But I do see Chelsea scoring a couple.
Not good that the picture of the cup has blue ribbons on it.