While Newcastle United and Manchester United are teams reborn under the management of Eddie Howe and Erik ten Hag, today's Carabao Cup clash will boil down to individual battles.
There will be important matchups all over the Wembley pitch, with Howe hopeful his Magpies can rediscover their attacking mojo, while Ten Hag will want the Red Devils to maintain their recent momentum.
But here, we crunch the numbers on three one-on-one duels which could do most to decide whether a major trophy will finally return to Tyneside after a 54-year wait.
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Marcus Rashford vs Kieran Trippier
If Newcastle are to end their 68-year wait for a domestic trophy, they will have to stop Rashford . . . and Trippier will be the man with most responsibility to keep a leash on his resurgent England teammate.
With eight goals in his last six games, Rashford in one of the most in-form players in Europe right now, averaging a goal or an assist every 63 minutes since the end of the World Cup.
Trippier himself has been in superb form for most of the Premier League season, and actually boasts the division’s highest individual average game-by-game rating on the stats website Sofascore.
But the right-back has not been quite at his best in recent weeks, and will certainly be tested in one-on-one duels with Rashford.
Averaging 1.3 successful dribbles per game in the Premier League this season, Rashford’s pace and trickery could worry Trippier, who has been dribbled past 1.1 times per 90 minutes.
But while Rashford’s overall dribble success this season is an unspectacular 38% and Trippier’s impressive winning ratio in ground duels of 56%, Newcastle must beware the movement off the ball of the Red Devils’ talisman.
Rashford is likely to attempt to drift in between and behind Trippier and right-sided Newcastle centre-back Fabian Schar, and his astonishing xG rating this season of 9.89 (vs Erling Haaland’s 3.74) is testament to his ability to exploit defensive gaps.
The Premier League teams who have fared best against Rashford in recent months, such as Crystal Palace and Aston Villa, have - like Newcastle - fielded flat back fours. But neither Schar nor Trippier boast the pace of Palace’s Chris Richards and Nathaniel Clyne, or Villa’s Ezri Konsa and Matty Cash.
Newcastle fans will hope, however, that Trippier’s outstanding creativity on the front foot – he boasts 3.1 key passes per Premier League game to Rashford’s 0.8 – will prove decisive.
Allan Saint-Maximin vs Diogo Dalot
While there will be inevitable focus on the blockbuster clash between Rashford and Trippier, one potential matchup going largely under the radar is that battle between Saint-Maximin and Dalot.
Should Saint-Maximin start today, the challenge for Manchester United’s right-back, whether it’s Aaron Wan-Bissaka or, more likely, Dalot, is crystal clear: at 4.2 per game this season, “Maxi” is averaging more dribbles than other Premier League player.
The flip side of that is that while Saint-Maximin excels at getting past opposing defenders – 60% of those dribbles have been successful – his end product is often lacking.
Having scored just once in 20 first-team appearances this season, albeit often coming off the bench, Maxi’s chance conversion rate is just 3.9% - comfortably the lowest of Newcastle’s attacking players and way behind Alexander Isak’s 23%.
Dalot has quietly established himself as a fan favourite and first-choice right-back at Old Trafford, and his stats back up his defensive reliability, having won 60% of his ground duels in the Premier League this season, and his 1.4 interceptions and 2.1 tackles per game rank him above Trippier in those respects.
But comfortably Dalot’s worst game of the season – when he was run ragged against Manchester City in October - came against a front three formation and a player, in Jack Grealish, similar to Saint-Maximin in his ability to beat his man on both inside and outside.
Bruno Guimaraes vs Bruno Fernandes
There is no mystery to the level of Newcastle’s reliance on Bruno G, having failed to win a league game in his absence this season, and averaging 2.17 points per match with him vs 0.66 per game without him,
But while Manchester United’s fortunes do not hinge so squarely on their own Bruno, the Portuguese has shown signs in recent weeks that he is returning to the form which saw him lead teams a merry dance immediately after his arrival at Old Trafford.
In terms of durability alone, Bruno Fernandes has been a pivotal part of the Red Devils’ revival under Erik Ten Hag, having played in all but one of their Premier League games this season.
First and foremost, Guimaraes may have to show off his combative defensive midfield skills today ahead of his creativity, with Fernandes having scored four goals and created six more since the Premier League restart in late December.
But Guimaraes’ incredible versatility is such that he has registered 21 interceptions in the league this season – more than Liverpool’s Fabinho – but has still been heavily creatively involved, boasting three assists and not only 78% pass accuracy vs Fernandes’ 70% in the opposition half, but averaging almost as many attacking passes per game (23.6 vs 25.6).
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