Preview of Leeds v Salford City; Carabao Cup 1st Round - WITH ORIGINAL GRAPHIC DESIGN BY ME :-)

Tomorrow night is the first round of the Carabao Cup. OK, who still calls it the League Cup, or even the Milk Cup? Carabao is well known to us here in Thailand but perhaps a sight mystery to those back home in Blighty. Anyway, as usual, I digress.

Leeds are going to Manchester, not to play City or United but to play newly promoted to the Football League, Salford City. Who? Exactly. They appear to be to Manchester what Accrington Stanley are to Liverpool? Who are they?

EXACTLY.......

Salford City is owned by former Manchester United players, the 'famous' class of '92, Gary Neville, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Phil Neville.

I truly hope they are all in attendance for their first Carabao Cup appearance as Leeds give them a lesson on class, superiority and quality by beating them at least 4-0. We need a superior performance from what could be a really exciting team if Marcelo's presser suggestions of some hefty changes come to fruition.

We are looking forward to the first look at new signing Eddie Nketiah and a first start for another new boy, Helder Costa as Marcelo intimated in today's press conference that there would be some changes as is often the case for these early cup rounds when teams in higher divisions play lower league opposition.

The historic link was certainly not lost on Marcelo.....

"For us, this game is very interesting, with the connections with Manchester United and we are going to play the game as seriously as we can."

That means we are going to send out a strong side and beat them to a pulp!

He also had a lot to say about Eddie after his first couple of training sessions proper.

"All the minutes that he had in the Arsenal and national teams, we could watch these minutes. Then I have an idea about the skills and capabilities of the player,"

“In these two days when we’re working with him it’s very easy to show in training what he’s showing in the games. He’s a complex player because he has a lot of capabilities.”

I think he likes him!

Marcelo also discussed someone I'm very excited to see play a bigger role this season, Mateusz Bogusz.

"Mateusz Bogusz will be inside the group. He has shown his skills. Now he is very close to the team that is playing the games at the weekend but he has to develop a lot of things yet."

He then went on to add....

"Because one thing is to have capabilities to deserve to be in the first XI. And another thing is to play and show these capabilities you have.

"He has the capabilities, the skills, he didn't have opportunities enough to show it, but he took advantage of the minutes that he had in the games."

No idea what that means exactly, but that air of slightly surreal mystery is what we love about Marcelo!

Let's hope that this is the first step in getting rid of Patrick 'where's the goal?' Bamford!

Catch all the action live on TV again tomorrow, that's three out of three games live on TV for Leeds so far on the LUFC TV, otherwise known as Sky Sports!

Or stick to Sports Talk Social where I will be bringing you my unbiased and constantly updated live feed ;-)

Marching On Together

@nathen007 #lufc #mot

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