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LONDON. – Manchester United midfielder Ander Herrera says his side will be out for “revenge” when they welcome West Ham United back to Old Trafford in the League Cup quarter-finals tonight.West Ham held Herrera and his teammates to a 1-1 draw on Sunday in a Premier League match that saw United manager Jose Mourinho sent to the stands for angrily kicking a water bottle.

United have made their worst start to a league season since 1989, drawing their last four home games, and Herrera warned Slaven Bilic’s West Ham players to brace themselves for a backlash.

“It’s positive that we are playing on Wednesday, when we can get revenge. We can turn our luck in the next game in the EFL Cup,” said the Spaniard, who won the FA Cup with United last season. “It doesn’t matter the competition, it doesn’t matter the game; we just want to win. We want to fight for everything and we want to make our fans proud.

“West Ham are a good side – it is not easy to stop them creating chances. They have (Manuel) Lanzini, they have (Diafra) Sakho, they have (Dimitri) Payet, they have (Michail) Antonio. They have very good players.

“But they just created two chances in the whole game. We were the dominant team, so hopefully on Wednesday we can create as many chances as we did (on Sunday) and normally we should win.”

United will be without midfielders Paul Pogba and Marouane Fellaini through suspension. Having started on the bench against West Ham on Sunday, captain Wayne Rooney will hope to return to the starting XI as he chases a record-equalling 249th United goal.

Arsenal will have a spring in their step ahead of their home game with Southampton, also tonight, after ending a run of three successive draws by beating Bournemouth 3-1 on Sunday.

But Southampton were also bolstered by a positive weekend result, having consigned former manager Ronald Koeman to a 1-0 defeat on his return to St Mary’s with Everton. “I felt it played a little bit on the confidence of the team when you do not win for three games,” admitted Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who has never lifted the League Cup.

“Suddenly, there’s questions. ‘Why do we not win?’ And the fluency goes a bit. These three points (against Bournemouth) will help us.” Wenger has the London derby at West Ham on Saturday in mind, and will use the game in midweek to test younger members of his squad. Lucas Perez is ready to make his comeback in Arsenal’s League Cup quarter-final against Southampton tonight, with Olivier Giroud unlikely to be risked following the hamstring injury he suffered in Sunday’s 3-1 win against Bournemouth. Although a final assessment has not been made on Giroud, the return to full training of Perez has eased a potential striker crisis for Wenger, who wants to rest both Alexis Sanchez and Theo Walcott but has limited back-up options amid injuries to Chuba Akpom and Yaya Sanogo. Perez, who has not played since the 2-0 win against Reading in the previous round, was signed during the summer by Arsenal from Deportivo La Coruna for £17 million.

Perez has proven his fitness and will be included in Wenger’s squad tonight.

The Spaniard’s return is a boost for the Arsenal boss with Giroud (groin) absent.

And Wenger is promising he will pick a strong squad to face the Saints.

He told Arsenal.com: “Lucas is in the squad and will have a mixture of youth and experience, but still 90 per cent of the first-team squad.”

Another player unavailable to face the Saints is Mathieu Debuchy.

The French right-back limped off with a hamstring injury in the win against Bournemouth on Sunday and Wenger is still waiting to discover how long he will be out for. “Mathieu has a scan today but we don’t have the results yet,” he added.

Wenger is also likely to use the Southampton match to give further first-team football to the likes of Emiliano Martinez, Ainsley Naitland-Miles, Rob Holding, Kieran Gibbs, Gabriel, Alex Iwobi, Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Kristian Bielik, while Stephy Mavididi could be involved following some good performances for the Under-23 team.

There has been concern at the number of games that Sanchez has played in recent weeks and Walcott, who has been rested so far this season in the League Cup, became a dad for the second time on Friday. “I tried to see if I could meet up on the morning of the [Bournemouth] game but the boss was adamant that he wants his players to come to the hotel,” said Walcott. “But we compromised and I managed to come a lot later. I was very pleased he allowed that so I had a lot more time because this was only the second night.”

Walcott, who now has nine goals this season, has revealed that he needs only one more for a coffee machine this Christmas from his wife Mel.

League Cup Fixtures

Today: Arsenal v Southampton (9:45pm), Manchester United v West Ham (10pm) – AFP.