Manchester United vs West Ham United: Wednesday, 7:45pm
Manchester United had barely lifted the Carabao Cup before Erik ten Hag was packing up his bags to return to Manchester.
United got the job done against Newcastle at Wembley to end a six-year trophy drought and Ten Hag dismissed the prospect of holding an open top bus parade. The Dutchman immediately switched his attention to the FA Cup clash with West Ham and that tells you plenty about his mindset.
Another piece of silverware may convince the former Ajax boss to sanction a celebration, but his immediate focus is firmly on a place in the sixth round.
United have already beaten the Hammers 1-0 at Old Trafford in the Premier League and they are a squad full of confidence.
Only Donny van de Beek, Christian Eriksen and Anthony Martial will be unavailable for United.
Marcus Rashford came through against Newcastle unscathed and he will be desperate to keep up his scoring run.
He has 25 goals this season and has only been on the losing side once this term – in the 3-2 defeat to Arsenal.
The England man has turned into United’s key man since the World Cup and his inclusion will give the hosts a foot up.
West Ham produced a convincing win over Nottingham Forest last time out, but away from home David Moyes’ men have been abject.
They have just one win and have lost eight of their 12 away games, but their xG (1.5) is considerably better than their record suggests away from home and in that table they sit in eighth place.
They have scored just seven times away, but they did hold Newcastle to a 1-1 draw at the start of February.
The Hammers did start to click into gear in the 4-0 romp over Forest, but United have conceded only eight goals at Old Trafford all season and have looked assured with Lisandro Martinez and Raphael Varane at the back.
Two-goal hero Danny Ings is ineligible and Lukasz Fabianski is a doubt after sustaining an eye injury in the Forest win.
Ings’ omission will be a blow to Moyes. His replacement Michail Antonio did score against Forest, but that was only his third goal all season.
United will simply have more attacking threat and with a belief that Ten Hag is building something special, they should get home past Moyes’ side with minimum fuss.
Key stats
- Man Utd have seen under 2.5 goals in their last six home matches against West Ham in all competitions
- Man Utd are undefeated in 19 of their last 20 home matches against West Ham in all competitions
- Man Utd are unbeaten in their last 10 matches in all competitions
- Man Utd are unbeaten in 18 home matches this season
- When Manchester United lead 1-0 at home, they win in 95% of their matches
- When West Ham lead 1-0 away, they win in 66% of their matches
