All the footprints you've ever left and fear expecting ahead (Everton)

FA Cup tie, and I do like a good FA Cup tie. Feels like there's less pressure, whether that's because the FA Cup is a "lesser" competition I don't know (and much as I like to criticise the media for belittling the competition it is a lesser competition, not that that means it's not exciting, or not worth winning - other competitions just got bigger), but for whatever reason I approach the FA Cup with less trepidation than I approach, say, Champions League games.
It is interesting to look at some FA Cup facts, given that people generally like to go on about how easy we have things, decisions etc.. These from the BBC:

Drawn to play at home only once in this cup run (to Tottenham), eliminating two Premier League clubs (Spurs and Fulham) and two Championship sides (Southampton and Derby).

Been paired with Premier League opposition in 14 of their last 16 rounds.

Considering how well we generally do in the cup (last season's Portsmouth defeat, which we really should have won, being the blip) these stats are pretty amazing. And it puts the lie to suggestions that we don't take the competition seriously. And shows the strength in depth we have at our disposal. Our top scorers in the competition demonstrating this as well, from the BBC again:

Their aggregate score so far is 13-2, and their leading scorers are Darren Gibson, Nani, Carlos Tevez and Danny Welbeck with two each.

From Everton's perspective the BBC throws an interesting fact out there:

In each of the last four seasons, the team halting Middlesbrough's run in the competition has gone on to reach, and then lose in the final. Everton knocked out the Teessiders in the quarter-finals.

Let's hope that is more of a quirk of statistics rather than an omen.
Picking the team isn't going to be easy, all we can really say is that it'll be completely different to the team that played Porto.
For comparison, here's the team that defeated Fulham in the quarter final:

Edwin van der Sar, Patrice Evra, John O'Shea, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher, Anderson, Ji-Sung Park, Carlos Tevez, Wayne Rooney

Surprisingly strong, and that before the Champions League tie against Inter.
For this match The Telegraph give:

Foster; G Neville, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra; Park, Fletcher, Scholes, Nani; Berbatov, Tevez.

There's certain murmurings in the papers that Macheda could start, and if that's the case he'll presumably come in for Berbatov. Rooney is unlikely to play, despite being up for the game against his former club, because of injury concerns. Whether Nani's performances recently merit a start is also in question, but with Giggs more than likely to be rested that would probably leave the choice between Ronaldo and Nani, with Ronaldo again a possibilty for a rest. In defence, it might be nice to see Rafael come back from injury, and Ferdinand could well be rested, no point taking chances on aggravating his injury. Evra could also be rested, with O'Shea or Fabio coming in there. All in all it seems a selection too scattered with question marks to make it worthwhile adding my starting XI to the mix.
Whoever plays I expect us to win. It'll be tight I've no doubt. Graham Poll (in saying something of use shock) says that of his 6 semi-finals, one goal was enough in each for the team going through. So I don't expect a lot of goals, but we're unbeaten in our last eight games against Everton (winning 6 drawing 2 - fact courtesy of BBC), and given our sound defensive performance against Porto midweek it would seem like we're back somewhere close to our best.
Prediction: Man Utd 2 Everton 0.