Saints will be looking to replicate the last time the two teams met at St Mary's, Villa will just be glad Sadio Mane & Shane Long aren't playing.
On the face of it this game is looking like it could be the most one sided Capital One Cup tie between two Premier League sides in living memory, however that means that Saints must be doubly careful in the way they approach this tie and maintain a professional approach throughout the whole game.
Of course there is the memory of that victory at the tail end of last season when Mane scored the fastest ever hat trick in Premier League history, but there is also this season with Saints having scored 15 goals in the last 5 games starting with the 6-0 win at MK Dons in the previous round.
In the same period, since Villa narrowly beat cross city rivals Birmingham 1-0 they have lost all four Premier League games, conceding 8 goals and scoring only 3, a sequence that saw them plunge to the bottom of the table and resulted in the sacking of Tim Sherwood at the weekend.
But a team with it's back to the wall is always the most dangerous and Saints should not underestimate this and go out on the park as if they have a god given right to win the game, we need to get the basics right first and foremost and then having done that and earned the right to play, impose ourselves on Villa and put them to the sword.
Ronald Koeman is already on record as saying he is taking this compettion very seriously, however with injuries to Shane Long and Jay Rodriguez as well as a suspension for Sadio Mane, he will have to make changes from what might have been his first choice attacking formation, however Saints still have a lot of options going forward including Juanmi and utilising Gaston Ramirez in an attacking role.
All in all it shows the strength in depth that Saints have this season and although there can be no doubt we have made errors at the back that have cost us dearly, the fact is that we are getting stronger as the season goes on and the team starts to gel.
The key player tonight could be Juanmi, he is a promising talent and has suffered from the fact that those in front of him in the pecking order have played so well, however this could be the chance to show his class, he has showed snatches of it in the limited time he has got so far, tonight could be his chance to start and show Ronald Koeman that he is ready to play a bigger role.
Perhaps this will be the rout that many including the bookies are predicting, I certainly hope so, but first we have to get the game won and Villa could be revitalised, funnily enough a change of manager can sometimes perk up a bad team and drive them to get a few results that they might not have got under the recently departed boss, even tough it will only be a caretaker manager in charge tonight, that effect could still come into play and that is what Saints have to be careful about.
After the departure of Chelsea and Arsenal from the competition last night, there is a distinct opening for Saints to make this their season in this competition, even if both Manchester clubs win tonight at home, there is a window of opportunity here for us to take a massive leap forward, after the taste of Europe this season we want more, we want a Wembley final and hopefully the win that will get us back into Europe next season.