Wins for Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea, banana skins for Stoke, Watford and Swansea

One of the highlights of the English football calendar takes place this weekend as Premier League clubs enter the FA Cup at its third-round stage.

And there are a couple of humdingers: A Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton (Friday), a Tees-Wear derby that pits two former top-flight clubs in Middlesbrough and Sunderland (Saturday) against each other and bottom-of-the-Premier-League Swansea City take on a top-of-the-Championship Wolverhampton Wanderers (Saturday).

Manchester United are also in action. Jose Mourinho, who won the FA Cup as Chelsea manager in 2007, says he will field a "strong team" against second-tier Derby County. Our European football correspondent, Andy Mitten spoke, to Eric Steele, a former goalkeeping coach on both United and Derby's books, ahead of the game about Jesse Lingard's growing influence at United having enjoyed a short spell on loan at Derby in 2015.

Here are my predictions:

FRIDAY:

Liverpool 2 Everton 0

The second Merseyside derby of the season could see two high-profile signings make their debuts.

Jurgen Klopp is considering starting Virgil van Dijk, his new £75 million (Dh373m) centre-back. Sam Allardyce hopes Cenk Tosun will become his £27m centre-forward in time to figure.

Liverpool are missing the injured playmaker Philippe Coutinho, who, judging by Klopp's defeatist tone in his pre-match news conference, seems to be edging closer to the Anfield exit door, with Barcelona poised to renew their interest. With recently crowned African Footballer of the Year Mohamed Salah also missing English pair Dominic Solanke and Daniel Sturridge will look to impress in their absence.