Manager Neil Warnock believes his Crystal Palace side can do the impossible and knock big spending Manchester City out of the Carling Cup tonight.

The Eastlands club have spent more than £120m on players this summer and could include big money signings such as Gareth Barry, Roque Santa Cruz and Carlos Tevez at Selhurst Park.

The Eagles in contrast have been restricted to free transfers and loan signings, but Warnock believes his player can cause an upset, but only if they defend better than they did against Newcastle United last Saturday.

"They let me touch the cup on Tuesday morning because it is the nearest I am going to get to it if we defend like we did in the 20 minutes against Newcastle," he said.

"We know we can't defend like that to have any chance of an upset but I think we've got people that can more than cause them problems but obviously we need a bit of luck on the day too.

"All the preparation we did for Newcastle, all the talk, has gone out the window 90 seconds after we kicked off.

"It was a waste of time working, I might as well have gone on holiday for a week and been fishing rather than spending all the time I did to go a goal down after a minute.

"If we don't do silly things like that I think we can give everybody, including Manchester City, a good game of football."

Julian Speroni could return to goal after missing Saturday with a throat injury, while new signing Ryan Smith could make his debut.

For live text commentary from the game click here from 7.30pm.