The First Round of the Carabao Cup always has a strange feeling to it.

You’ve just got the new season underway and then a cup game appears, ripe with the possibility of being dumped out of one of the three competitions within four days of the season having started.

I’ll be honest, I usually can’t be bothered with it if we get drawn at home, but tend to end up buying a ticket anyway. That dilemma was removed by us being drawn away to Watford and, whilst an early-season away evening in London has its appeal, I won’t be making the trip to Vicarage Road.

Possible starting XI

What’s much more important is which players make the trip and which ones make the starting line-up.

I’m in two minds on this one. Usually you would make wholesale changes for the Cup, yet in our position it must be tempting for Liam Manning to give the majority of last Saturday’s team more minutes on the pitch together.

We know there will be one enforced change after confirmation that Amankwah Forson suffered a hamstring injury against Millwall. Mathias Kvistgaarden was brought on in his place on Saturday and looked lively, so I could see him starting as much to help him get up to speed ahead of Saturday’s league game at Portsmouth.

Josh Sargent surely will be left out, with Jovon Makama starting in his place if Ante Crnac is not seen as a striker by Manning (as reported). Vladan Kovačevic presumably will make way to give Daniel Grimshaw his first NCFC start in goal too.

As for the rest, your guess is as good as mine!

Watford

The usual managerial turnover at Watford over summer saw Tom Cleverly pushed aside for Paulo Pezzolano. The Uruguayan was previously manager of Spanish team Real Valladolid.

Pezzolano has been known for preferring a 4-3-3 formation and that’s how he set Watford up on Saturday for their game away to Charlton. Their opening day defeat was even more disappointing than ours, conceding a goal in stoppage time to lose 1-0.