I have previewed five games today covering League Cup, Champions League and Coupe de la Ligue and can share some basic pre match analysis background notes about the two domestic cups ...............

English League Cup:

Round 2:

Last five seasons have seen this round produce 43.55% home wins, 25% draws and 31.45% end in aways. Fewer draws than we tend to expect in English cup games in general and that is probably down to the way some teams approach the competition, which us giving it low priority and they therefore play in an open manner, that is backed up by the number of goals, with just shy of 59% of games going "over", the four top divisions saw between 48% and 54% end in three goals or more last season, so these games are producing at the rate of 5-11% more, the 54% was from the Premier League  (other three leagues were all between 48-50%) and with only 13 EPL teams playing this round, the difference is even more marked. LC games also produce fewer home wins than the top three divisions and with only 5-6 League 2 (where the home bias is less pronounced) teams taking part, again the difference is significant, so, in general terms, fewer draws and more goals than what we would usually expect.

Good Luck.