Town visit Burnley on Tuesday evening aiming to reach the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time since 2007.
A home tie against Fleetwood or Sheffield Wednesday, who also meet on Tuesday, awaits the winners of the fourth-round tie at Turf Moor.
Since the teams drew 0-0 at Portman Road 10 days ago, the Clarets have continued their excellent form, extending their Championship winning run to nine matches with a comprehensive 3-0 victory at Norwich City.
Their lead at the top of the table has extended to seven points with Sheffield United having been held to a 0-0 draw at Rotherham, who Town defeated 4-1 in the third round of the FA Cup. The Clarets are 17 points ahead of Middlesbrough in third.
The Blues go into the game off the back of Saturday’s disappointing 1-1 draw at Cambridge United with a big first-v-third League One clash at home to the Owls on Saturday.
Speaking at the weekend, manager Kieran McKenna said he hadn't yet turned his attention to the cup tie, while next Saturday’s fixture against the Owls would be the most significant game of the week.
"I haven’t thought about it too much, 100 per cent of my focus has been on this game, I’ve tried to keep my mind off Burnley completely,” he said.
"I think we all know going into next week that Sheffield Wednesday is the biggest game of the week but on the other hand we need to be competitive as a squad.
"We have worked hard to get to that point and we need to go on and make sure that we represent ourselves with pride.
"So we need to find the right balance to do that while making sure that we have a good team ready for Saturday.”
McKenna, who has said that three or four players didn't make the trip due to minor injuries, seems likely to play a similar side to the one which faced the Clarets in the first match with Vaclav Hladky in goal, the Czech having impressed in the Portman Road tie.
Harry Clarke is cup-tied having played for Stoke earlier in the competition so Janoi Donacien - or perhaps Kane Vincent-Young - will be on the right of the defence. Luke Woolfenden and Cameron Burgess also seem likely to return to the starting XI.
Greg Leigh looks set to play wide on the left with Kayden Jackson wide on the right, while McKenna looks set to hand a second full Town debut to Massimo Luongo in the centre of midfield, probably alongside Cameron Humphreys with skipper Sam Morsy suspended having picked up two bookings in the competition and Lee Evans suffering a knock against the U’s and unikely to be risked.
Two from Marcus Harness, Sone Aluko and Kyle Edwards will be in the number 10 roles with George Hirst potentially given another start as the central striker.
Burnley are also likely to make changes to their side as they did in the first match. Since that game they have signed Irish international striker Michael Obafemi, who is eligible for the tie having not featured in the competition for previous club Swansea City.
At Turf Moor this season, the Clarets are unbeaten having won 11 and drawn four in the Championship and also beat Crawley 3-1 in the Carabao Cup in their only previous home cup match.
If the tie, Town's first fourth-round replay since a 1-0 defeat at Sheffield United in February 1998, is drawn at 90 minutes it will go to 30 minutes’ extra-time and then penalties.
Historically, Town have won 19 of the games between the sides (18 in the league), Burnley 13 (13) with a further 12 (11) ending in draws.
Town most recently won at Turf Moor in the Championship in April 2011 when goals from David Norris and Connor Wickham saw Paul Jewell’s men to a 2-1 victory.
The match at Portman Road 10 days ago ended 0-0 after the top-scoring sides from League One and the Championship were unable to find a goal between them. Harness came closest for Town when he hit the bar in the first half.
Prior to that, the teams had most recently met at the start of January 2016 when they again drew 0-0, this time at Turf Moor.
The result was a fair reflection of a game which was amongst the more entertaining 0-0s.
Blues coach Lee Grant had two spells with the Clarets, a short loan in 2005/06 in which he made one start and then a three-year stay between July 2010 and May 2013 in which he made 125 starts and one sub appearance.
Former Town loan keeper Will Norris, who made 20 Blues appearances in 2019/20, is a Burnley player but is currently on loan at Peterborough United.
Tuesday’s referee is Scott Oldham from Poulton-le-Fylde who has shown 81 yellow cards and one red in 25 games so far this season.
Oldham’s last Town match was the 2-1 defeat at Plymouth in September in which he booked George Edmundson, Sam Morsy, Lee Evans and Marcus Harness.
He was also the man in the middle for the 0-0 draw at Oxford in November 2021 in which he again booked Morsy, Bailey Clements and one member of the home side.
Prior to that, he was in charge of the 4-1 defeat at Doncaster in October 2020 in which he awarded Rovers a penalty after Toto Nsiala felled Josh Sims. He also yellow-carded the centre-half as well as James Wilson and Andre Dozzell.
Oldham also refereed the 1-0 home defeat to Oxford in February 2020 in which he red-carded Jackson for a stamp on visitors’ defender Rob Dickie in the final minute and booked Luke Woolfenden, Luke Garbutt and one U’s player.
Before that he was in charge of the 1-0 win at Rochdale in November 2019 in which he yellow-carded only James Norwood.
Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Donacien, Woolfenden, Edmundson, Keogh, Burgess, Burns, Vincent-Young, Davis, Leigh, Evans, Luongo, Humphreys, Edwards, Chaplin, Harness, Aluko, Broadhead, Ladapo, Hirst, Jackson.