LONDON - Manchester United will take its hopes of winning a third straight League Cup title to West Ham today, with recent form suggesting that only a changed lineup could prevent it reaching the semifinals. United cruised to the top of the Premier League for the first time this season with a 7-1 win over Blackburn on Saturday but manager Alex Ferguson is set to make widespread changes to keep players fresh. Javier Hernandez, Chris Smalling, Jonny Evans and Wes Brown are all likely to play, with United's squad also containing reserves Magnus Eikrem, Ben Amos, Bebe and Ravel Morrison.
But midfielder Michael Carrick is not contemplating a correspondingly weaker performance due to any changes."We set high standards and we want to keep hitting those levels," Carrick said. "We did that, but we want to keep doing that every week." United's priorities as usual are the Premier League and Champions League, but with Arsenal hosting Wigan in today's other quarterfinal - and Aston Villa-Birmingham and West Bromwich Albion-Ipswich scheduled for tomorrow - there are still some tricky opponents left in the second-tier cup competition.(AP)