Friday 2 November 2012 12:52, UK
Merse says QPR should win, but he's not tipping Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea or Man City to do the same.
Steve Clarke has done really well to put plenty of pace in the West Brom team, especially going forward.
The speed of Peter Odemwingie, Romelu Lukaku and Marc-Antoine Fortune has been priceless and makes them a good counter-attacking football team.
They should have drawn with Man City because they were in the ascendancy at the end of that game and they were unlucky against Newcastle. They've conceded last-kick-of-the-game goals to two top six teams so they're doing ok. This team is not far away.
Southampton can't defend for toffee and Nigel Adkins has started making some strange decisions. He left Rickie Lambert out two weeks ago against West Ham even though he's their best player by a million miles (with the possible exception of Adam Lallana).
Sometimes when managers are under pressure they make bad decisions and if they keep leaking goals he'll be under even more pressure. I don't see them fixing it overnight and I don't see them grinding out the 1-0 wins that they need.
I can't go with anything but a West Brom win.
PAUL PREDICTS: 4-1
Liverpool missed a trick on Wednesday night by going out of the Capital One Cup.
They're a million miles off the top four in the Premier League, I don't think they can win the Europa League and the FA Cup depends on the draw. The League Cup still has Bradford in it and Arsenal and Chelsea playing weakened sides. They could win that!
Only two men in the world have earned the license to play a weakened team in the League Cup; Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger. They can do what they want, but you have to remember that fans turn up to see their team win games.
I know Luis Suarez plays every week, but if you're going to rest him then don't put him on the bench. Plus they don't play again until Sunday so they could give the players a few days off after the Cup game. It's not good for Brendan Rodgers when the fans start booing the team off and there's so much pressure on them now.
If Liverpool play well they can beat anybody at home, but their home record is awful this year. It's probably as bad as Barnet's in 2012 in terms of games won and I really should fancy Newcastle here.
But I know Liverpool can slaughter anybody on their day, so I will go for the draw.
PAUL PREDICTS: 1-1
Reading fans should be majorly concerned. I would find it hard for Arsenal to beat my Sunday morning team if you gave us a 4-0 head-start.
If you defend right and do the things properly then teams shouldn't be able to come back, but Reading were very naïve. When Theo Walcott scored Arsenal's first goal they only had two men defending!
In training, you often work on forwards against defence. Sometimes a coach will put 11 attackers against four defenders and one holding midfielder and it's hard to score if they do their job properly.
I could probably play against Reading these days. They have nobody who can tackle and they're too nice; they're crying out for someone like Lee Cattermole who will get stuck in and wind people up.
It was pretty much Reading's first team on Tuesday night and as Brian McDermott said, it was embarrassing. They will be nervous even if they score the first goal against QPR and if they go 2-0 up and QPR get one back you can only imagine what they'll be thinking.
QPR haven't won a game all season, but suddenly everyone expects them to win this one. If Reading had beaten Arsenal there would have been a bit less pressure on, but now the fans, the directors and the pundits think QPR should win.
That could work in Reading's favour, but personally I think QPR will get that first victory.
PAUL PREDICTS: 3-1
Forget about the Reading game. It was a great performance from Arsenal to come back from 4-0 down, but it doesn't tell us anything about this game.
There aren't going to be many players on the pitch who played in the Capital One Cup. I doubt if four players who played in midweek are involved on Saturday, so I would play down the seven goals Arsenal scored in midweek.
I would focus on the two league games against Norwich and QPR when they only scored one goal and didn't create many chances. That's a big concern. Admittedly, they don't look like conceding goals, but they don't look like scoring either. It's almost the opposite to last season and they need to find that happy medium.
Last season they relied on Robin van Persie badly and now we are seeing why. He will get some stick from the away fans on Saturday, but I think he'll look forward to this.
Sir Alex Ferguson made a tactical masterstroke against Chelsea last week. I can't remember the last time Ashley Young kicked a ball, but he went with the wide men and Chelsea didn't know what had hit them in the first 20 minutes.
But I'm not convinced he'll do the same thing at home to Arsenal and I don't think he'll be happy to let a team keep the ball at Old Trafford like Chelsea did last week. The crowd won't be happy if they let Arsenal pass the ball around and they risk getting outnumbered in midfield if they play the same way.
I just think Ferguson will pick a team to win the game and I don't see Arsenal scoring enough goals. I've got to pick Manchester United.
PAUL PREDICTS: 3-1
Fulham v Everton
Norwich v Stoke
Sunderland v Aston Villa
Swansea v Chelsea
Tottenham v Wigan
West Ham v Man City
