Chelsea’s participation in European competition meant a late entry into this year’s Carabao Cup, and Enzo Maresca’s side have reached this stage courtesy of a 5-0 thrashing of Barrow in their sole fixture. Newcastle, by contrast, required penalties to knock out Nottingham Forest in the last round having secured a narrow win over Wimbledon earlier in the campaign.

Eddie Howe admitted his Newcastle side are in a “difficult phase” after the weekend league defeat to Chelsea, but insists morale remains strong within his squad.

Howe’s side have slipped into the bottom half and are without a win in five league games.

The Newcastle manager told Sky Sports after the 2-1 loss: “I thought it was a really high level game. I thought it was two really good teams. I thought it was a brave performance by us but the game was decided by a couple of moments.

“We were disappointed with the second goal. We gave the ball away, it cost us with the goal. It is an uncharacteristic goal for us to concede. I am proud of what the players gave today, if we continue to play as we are then the results will come.

“The attitude of the players is very good. We dug deep. We scored a really good goal and proved that we are that attacking force we can be. Sometimes you go through phases like this, we are going through a difficult phase in terms of results.”

As expected, Enzo Maresca has rung the changes for Chelsea as a number of fringe figures get opportunities to push their case for greater Premier League involvement

Chelsea XI: Jorgensen; Disasi, Tosin, Badiashile, Cucurella; Fernandez, Veiga, Dewsbury-Hall; Nkundu, Felix, Mudryk.

Anthony Gordon is fit to start for Newcastle after recovering from his groin injury. He’s named in a strong XI by Eddie Howe.

Newcastle XI: Pope; Krafth, Schar, Kelly, Hall; Tonali, Willock, Longstaff; Gordon, Isak, Joelinton.

Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca has praised a “beautiful” culture of English football for breeding drama that makes it the envy of the rest of Europe.

Five of the 10 Premier League games played over the weekend saw the result change in stoppage time, with Brentford’s 4-3 win over Ipswich on Saturday and Manchester United’s late 2-1 defeat to West Ham the pick of them.

Wolves fought back to draw 2-2 with Brighton despite falling two goals behind as late as the 85th minute, while Everton and Bournemouth each snatched a point at the death in their games against Fulham and Aston Villa.

Maresca - who was spared a nail-biting climax in his team’s 2-1 win against Newcastle - suggested supporters in England do not realise how lucky they are.

“It’s the reason why people are so in love with the Premier League,” the Italian said. “You’re from England, you don’t realise how the Premier League is (viewed) abroad.

“One of the reasons why is that the game is never finished here. In different countries, my country for instance, if you’re 2-0 up last five minutes, you can have five or six players that fall down for 20 seconds, half an hour. It’s difficult to come back.

“In England it’s a different culture. It’s probably the reason why it’s so beautiful.”

Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca said the sacking of Erik ten Hag has forced him to re-think preparations for Sunday’s trip to Manchester United.

The game at Old Trafford will be United’s first in the Premier League since a poor start to the season prompted them to dismiss their manager of nearly two and a half years, with assistant Ruud van Nistelrooy placed in interim charge.

Sporting Lisbon manager Ruben Amorim has been heavily linked with the role, but should an appointment not have been made by the weekend it will mean a reunion in the dugout for Maresca and former United striker Van Nistelrooy, who played together for a year at Malaga between 2011 and 2012.

It has also meant extra homework for the Blues boss, who has had to dig out videos of the stand-in manager’s former club PSV Eindhoven.

“I guess it will be Ruud (in charge),” said Maresca. “He’s a friend of mine, we played together, we spent a year together at Malaga and we still have a relationship.

“We started to watch some PSV games. We’d already watched many Man United games. I’m sad for Erik and in the same time happy for Ruud. Hopefully I can see him Sunday.”

The winner of tonight’s tie will be in the hat a little later tonight as the quarter-final fixtures are drawn:

Newcastle boss Eddie Howe revealed that Anthony Gordon may have a chance of featuring against Chelsea in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup clash.

The sides meet for the second time in four days having faced each other in the Premier League on Sunday, when the Blues emerged victors with a 2-1 win at Stamford Bridge.

Gordon was not named in the squad at the weekend due to a groin problem, but Howe stressed that the “right decision” will be made about whether the winger can be involved at St James’ Park.

Howe said: “He has been for a scan, we’re hopeful the injury isn’t serious, we didn’t think it was when he initially did it. Let’s see how he is today.

“It was in training, I think it was Friday, but it didn’t become necessarily obvious to us until Saturday.

“Nothing serious, it’s one of those things you get from time to time that players can play with or not play with. He felt it was too much for him on Sunday to play.

“There is (a chance he could feature) but we have to make the right decision, we have Arsenal coming up very quickly. It’s about making sure we do no further damage to him.”

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca is under no pressure from the club to secure a top-four Premier League finish in his debut season in charge, the Italian said on Tuesday as he prepared for the second of back-to-back meetings with Newcastle.

Welcome to the Independent’s live coverage of the Carabao Cup fourth round, with tonight seeing Newcastle United host Chelsea.

The two sides met only a few days ago in the Premier League, with Cole Palmer’s winner proving decisive on that occasion - but there could be very different lineups tonight, at least for Enzo Maresca, who has played alternate sides in league and cup this term.

All the team news and build-up is coming up.