League One Fleetwood Town take on Premier League Everton in Round Three of the Carabao Cup at Highbury on Wednesday night. Kick-off is at 7:45 pm.

Team News

Fleetwood boss Joey Barton has no new injury concerns going into the tie and has a fit squad to choose from. Midfielder Jordan Rossiter is the only man sidelined as he is still recovering from a long term injury. 

Meanwhile, Toffees boss Carlo Ancelotti will be without Jean-Philippe Gbamin, Cenk Tosun, Mason Holgate and Jarrad Branthwaite who are all recovering from injury. Despite having a relatively fit squad the Italian is expected to rotate his squad for the tie like in the previous round against Salford City. 

Predicted Line-ups

Fleetwood boss Joey Barton is expected to make an unchanged side for the Cods on Wednesday night, whereas Everton boss Carlo Ancelotti could multiple changes to the side that beat West Bromich Albion 5-2 at the weekend.

Fleetwood Town: Cairns , Andrew, Whelan, Burns, Duffy, Evans, Camps, Morris, Coutts, Stubbs, Hill.

Everton: Virginia, Kenny, Michael Keane, Mina, Nkounkou, Bernard, Davies, Gordon, Sigurdsson, Walcott, Moise Keane. 

Form Guide

Fleetwood Town come into the match following a narrow 2-1 defeat to Peterborough United in League One on Saturday. Joey Barton's side have reached round three after knocking out Wigan Athletic and Port Vale in the first and second rounds respectively. 

Everton will arrive at Highbury off the back of a 5-2 at home to West Brom on Saturday and are undefeated this season. The Toffees reached round three having convincingly beaten Salford City 3-0 in round two. 

Fleetwood Town: LWWWW

Everton: WWWWD

Ones to watch 

English-born Northern Irish midfielder Callum Camps will be a threat going forward for Fleetwood on Wednesday night. The Carabao Cup is the only competition Camps is yet to score in for Fleetwood this season having netted twice already in League One and once in the EFL Trophy.  The midfielder joined Fleetwood in the summer having been at Rochdale for the previous eight years. In that time, he had a good record for the Dale in the League Cup having scored three times in seven appearances. 

Another threat for the Cods will be wide man Josh Morris. The left-sided midfielder has already been on the scoresheet twice for Fleetwood in the competition as well as picking up an assist in League One.

As for Everton, attacking midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson will be one for the Fleetwood backline to watch out for. The Iceland international has a brilliant record in this competition for Everton having scored three goals in four League Cup appearances for the Toffees. The attacking midfielder will also look to add a creative spark to the Everton line-up having picked up an assist in the previous round against Salford. 

English winger Theo Walcott is another Everton player who has featured at international level and will look to use his pace to cause problems out wide. Walcott is yet to win the League Cup but came close with Arsenal in 2007 when he started in their 2-1 defeat to Chelsea in the final. Despite having made over 500 career appearances, Walcott has only appeared 28 times in the League Cup, scoring 11 times. 

Previous Meetings

The two sides have never faced each other in a competitive match before. The only exception was back in November 2019 when Fleetwood travelled to Goodison Park to face an Everton U21's side in the EFL Trophy. Fleetwood were victorious on the night by four goals to nil.

Where to watch

The tie will be shown on Sky Sports Football and Main Event with coverage starting at 7:30 pm and the match kicking off 15 minutes later at 7:45 pm. 

Pre-match quotes

When talking about the thought test Fleetwood will come up against Joey Barton told their website: 

“The league for us will always be the priority, but to give a great account of ourselves live on TV against one of the best coaches in the world, and an Everton side that are on the up, then it will be an exciting occasion.

“Even if Everton rotate, you are playing against household names, international footballers, and Premier League players, I see it as a challenge and look forward to the occasion. We have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.

“When we cross the white line, we’ve got to do our town and club proud. We’ll have a couple of plans to try and disrupt them, but we want to beat Everton. We aren’t here to just take part; we’ll know that we have to be excellent.”

Following a strong start to the season, Everton boss Carlo Ancelotti believes consistency is key and told the media:

"If you want to be in a good position in the table, consistency is the most important part of our job,” he said.

“The consistency arrives when you have confidence, you have knowledge and you believe.

“In this moment, the team believes they can compete.

“We started well in the Premier League but we have to keep going.”