With day one of the League programme over, it’s nice to get away from the pressures of the bread and butter stuff with a nice easy tie in one of the Cup competitions. Naturally enough, being Walsall, that’s what we didn’t get when we pulled Swansea City out of the hat.

Richard Money, strangely enough, doesn’t have many real decisions to make for the game, if any. Ince will keep his place in goal and three of the back four pick themselves, with Gerrard, Dann and Boertien. His choice will be whether to bring in the recovering Rhys Weston in place of Darren Wrack at right back and, possibly, he might just decide to give Ian Roper a run out out in place of Dann or Gerrard.

Hall, Sonner, Dobson and Fox also pick themselves, with Demontagnac still suspended and Sonko injured, unless he decides to give Alex Nicholls or Mark Bradley a game.

Up front, if Carneiro is injured (although there has been no news about yesterday’s reports, so it might have just been a scare) and Butler fit, then I’d expect Butler and Mooney to be together. Deeney is the option if Butler doesn’t make it.

As for Swansea, they have had a few changes over the summer, mainly to their strike force. Out have gone Andy Oakes, Izzy Iriekpen, Tom Williams, Adebayo Akinfenwa, Pawel Abbott and Lee Trundle, to be replaced by Matty Collins, Jason Scotland, Guillem Bauza Mayol, Ferrie Bodde, Darryl Duffy and Angel Rangel

Their form is likely to depend on how well the two Spaniards settle in, along with Jason Scotland, who has a good scoring record north of the border. That, however, doesn’t always mean that a player does well in the English Leagues straight away. They will also have to get over the loss of the talismanic Lee Trundle. Whatever the merits of Trundle as a player, he was undoubtably a hero with the fans and, I think they won’t be showing much patience if they are slow off the mark in front of goal.

Predictions?

The question, of course, is whether their manager, former Saddler Roberto Martinez, sees the League Cup as any sort of priority when getting out of the Division has to be their main aim. They are, yet again, amongst the favourites for promotion and the pressure will be intense on them this season. Because of that, it really is impossible to say what kind of starting eleven we might see from them tonight, so I’ll be sitting well and truly on the fence and won’t commit myself to any score at all!