League cups preview

By Onz Chery
Jan 4, 2016

I don't know about you but the midweek league cup games always catch me off guard. That's not going to happen this week! This week I'm not going to read a headline like "Middlesbrough knocked United out of the Capital One Cup, beating them 3-1 in PKs" and go: "What?! Nobody told me United was playing today! Why didn't you text me, Van Gaal?!"

I got my football calendar this week, league cup ganes are not going to catch me offside. This week is loaded with cup games: Capital One Cup, FA Cup, Copa del Rey. 42 cup games in total. Yeah, it's a lot of cups but don't throw away your cup, re-use it please.

I'm guessing not many teams are going for three points this week. Okay, no more jokes, let me start filling your cup:

Capital One Cup

Most big teams already finished drinking their cups. Arsenal got knocked out by Sheffield Wednesday (on a Wednesday) 3-0, Chelsea (they're still a big team) lost to Stoke City in penalties, so did Leicester to Hull City. And United lost to Middlesbrough in PKs too-- the game I missed.

So we've had an unexpected Capital One Cup so far, thankfully we got cups not glasses, you know glasses break easy. This Cup is only going to get more unexpected as you drink it.

We're up to the first leg of the semi-finals. Semi-final? Don't look at the cup half empty though, look at it half full.

• Stoke City vs Liverpool at Britannia Stadium @ 3 pm (USA Eastern Timezone) on Tuesday

Liverpool just came from an "angry" 2-0 loss to West Ham, but before that they were on a two game 1-0 win streak with Benteke scoring both goals. Their main problem is scoring, they scored four goals in their last seven games. And only won 2.

And for Stoke, they lost their last game to West Bromich Albion 2-1. They sit in tenth place in the league but managed to beat Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and draw with Leicester and Tottenham.

• Everton vs Manchester City at Goodison Park @ 3 pm on Wednesday

City scored two late goals to defeat Watford 2-1 last Saturday but they haven't been playing their best football lately.

On the other hand, Everton put up a strong performance their last game, tying to Tottenham 1-1. Their star player Romelu Lukaku is having a terrific season, leading the premier league in goals with 15.

We emptied that cup, next one:

Copa del Rey

The most anticipated game in Wednesday's league cup games in Spain is Barcelona vs Espanyol. Barca failed to score last Saturday against a rocky Espanyol defense in a 0-0 finale. I bet you each member of Luis Enrique's attacking trio wants a hat-trick.

Villareal vs Athletic Bilbao isn't a bad game either. Villareal sits in fourth place in La Liga while Bilbao is just two spots underneath them in sixth place.

• Athletic Bilbao vs Villareal at San Mames @ 6 am on Wednesday

• Barcelona vs Espanyol at Camp Nou @ 2:30 pm on Wednesday

Let's switch back to our cup of tea, we're going back in England:

FA Cup

United is playing Sheffield, Arsenal is hosting Sunderland, Norwich is going against Manchester City... There's a lot of good games. But the best one is nonetheless:

• Tottenham vs Leicester City at White Hart Lane @ 11 am on Sunday

Unexpected title-contenders Leicester are on a three game winless streak. Can they get things back together with a win over Tottenham?

CAUTION: Tottenham's cup is hot! The Hotspurs haven't lost a game since Oct. 22. They're on a 14 game unbeaten run.

I showed you the cups, can you guess what's inside of them? Predict scores:

1. Stoke City vs Liverpool

2. Everton vs Manchester City

3. Athletic Bilbao vs Villareal

4. Barcelona vs Espanyol

5. Tottenham vs Leicester

The best predictcupper will get a prize.

Article taken from Read The Game on availablesports.blogspot.com.

1. Stoke vs Liverpool 0-2
2. Everton vs M.C. 0-1
3. Bilbao vs Villareal 2-1
4. Barca vs Espanyol 2-0
5. Tottenham vs Leicester 2-2
   (do more threads like that)

lol, well written.. Time for league cups.. I'll go ahead and predict that all English teams will draw, barca destroying Espanyol to make up for the last meeting and Bilbao to take a narrow but convincing win against Villareal..

Stoke vs Liverpool 1-1
Everton vs City. 2-2
Bilbao vs Villareal 2-1
Barca vs Espanyol 5-0
Tottenham vs Leicester 1-1

Tottenham is meeting Leicester 3 days after at the 13th in the league as well.. Spurs should be favorites to win both fixtures (especially as vardy is injured), but I'd like to see Leicester upset them in either game. I'll go for a draw in the cup and Spurs winning in the league..

Stoke vs Liverpool 0-1
Everton vs City 2-1
Bilbao vs Villareal 3-0
Barca vs Espanyol 4-0
Tottenham vs Leicester 2-1

@ Minoas57 Yeah, you gonna see more of these.

@ KTBFFHSWE Thank you. And yeah, I forgot Vardy's injured.

Lemme start dropping some predictions so I an win this:

Stoke vs Liverpool 1-3 (After what happened last game, Klopp is going to motivate the mess out of his team. They must score.)

Barcelona vs Espanyol 4-0 (KTBFFHSWE is right, Barca is coming for Espnyol after going goalless last game.)

Stoke vs Liverpool 0-1
Everton vs Manchester City 1-2
Bilbao vs Villareal 1-2
Barca vs Espanyol 3-1
Tottenham vs Leicester 1-1

I would like for Leicester to win but it's propably gonna take everything just to achieve a draw so I'm gonna go for that...

Stoke vs Liverpool 1-1
Everton vs Manchester City 0-2
Bilbao vs Villareal 1-3
Barca vs Espanyol 2-0
Tottenham vs Leicester 2-0

In the order written:
1-0
0-2
2-2
4-0
2-1

Stoke vs Liverpool 0-1 haha :P
Everton vs Manchester City 1-2
Bilbao vs Villareal 2-2
Barca vs Espanyol 3-0
Tottenham vs Leicester 1-1

So Liverpool beat Stoke 1-0. Good job, Chucksea and Emobot for getting the right score. People can still predict.

Standings

1.Chucksea -------------------- 3
2.Emobot7---------------------- 3
3.Minoas57--------------------- 1
4.KTBFFHSWE----------------1
5.Onze11-------------------------1
6.Raimondo90----------------- 1
7.Louis_van _gaal-------------0

Lemme finish predicting:

Everton vs Man City 1-3
Bilbao vs Villareal 2-1
Tottenham vs Leicester 1-0
Barcelona vs Espanyol 4-0

@ shpalman Lol at the Liverpool prediction.

Everton vs Man City 0-2

Everton vs Manchester City 2-3

Athletic Bilbao vs Villareal 2-2

Barcelona vs Espanyol 2-0

Tottenham vs Leicester 1-2

Everton vs Manchester City 1-1 ... Everton lately have a reputation for drawing matches . Well Martinez teams always had that reputation .

Athletic Bilbao vs Villareal 2-1

Barcelona vs Espanyol 4-1

Tottenham vs Leicester 1-0 Spurs are in good form

I am changing my Everton vs Man City:

0-2

Edit

Lol I wasn't thinking and forgot I could just edit my comment instead of writing a knew one. My bad.

Standings

1.Chucksea -------------------- 10
2.Emobot7---------------------- 6
3.Marcus201--------------------5
4.Minoas57--------------------- 4
5.KTBFFHSWE----------------4
6.Onze11-------------------------4
7.Louis van gaal-----------3
8.tiki_taka-------------------------3
9.Shpalman ---------------------2
10.Raimondo90----------------- 1
11.NovaRuk-----------------------0

Chucksea is still on top, he guessed the right score for the Liverpool vs Stoke and Everton vs City game, impressive. Marcus201 didn't even predict for the first game but he still managed to get to third place, guessing the right score for the Barca vs Espanyol game and predicting that Bilbao will beat Villareal.

Wow, Everton beat City, I didn't see that coming.

Dang it...As for Tottenham vs Leicester City 2-1

Lol, no matter what happen, Chucksea already win, congrats man. On another note, you're sure you gave me the right rating onze?

Oh man all my predictions were terrible lol. Chucksea I hope you made some money with those predictions because most were spot on.

@ Emobot Yes, roommate. You predicted the right score for Liverpool vs Stoke (3), that Villareal will score 2 (1), that Espanyol will score 1 (1). And that Barca will beat Espanyol, everybody did lol (1).

I like that point system^

So for me..

Stoke vs Liverpool 1-1 -> 1 point for Pool correct score.
Everton vs City. 2-2 -> 1 point for Everton correct score
Bilbao vs Villareal 2-1 -> 1 point for correct 1X2
Barca vs Espanyol 5-0 -> 1 point for correct 1x2
Tottenham vs Leicester 1-1 -> 3 points for correct score!!

But let's say that I would have guesses 3-1 for the Bilbao-Villa fixture-> 1 point for correct 1x2 + 1 point for correct Bilbao score. Amiright?

Should do this more often..