It's actually not just 2 games but 3 - the week before this game, we play Basel at home in what could be a crucial decider in the CL group. So it's a period of high pressure and likely high-intensity games. While I'd like us to win this trophy, in the bigger scheme of things, I think we should just play our best teams in the other games and stick to the "mixed team" policy that got us through to this round.
That's not to say it's a poor team we're sending. Look at these teams for the past 2 rounds which we fielded:
vs Boro: Mignolet, Toure, Sakho, Enrique, Manquillo, Lucas, Rossiter, Markovic, Sterling, Lallana, Lambert
vs Swansea: Jones, Toure, Lovren, Johnson, Manquillo, Lucas, Henderson, Coutinho, Markovic, Borini, Lambert
We're not taking this competition lightly as we've actually played just 2 youngsters (Rossiter, Williams) and even then, they combined for 90 minutes and we only played one of them at a time. We bought to build depth in the summer, and this is the time for that depth to show itself, either in the form of a direct injection of a backup player or "future project" we acquired (e.g. Lambert and Markovic), or the relegation of an erstwhile regular first team player to a backup role (e.g. Lucas, Johnson, Enrique).
Now, I haven't seen Bournemouth play this season so I'll take Pesam's assessment that their midfield is excellent. However, I also think the upper tier teams in the Championship aren't really too far off the lower tier or newly-promoted teams in the Premier League. Sometimes, they might actually be better, but for some tough luck in the promotion playoffs. A favourable comparison between Bournemouth and teams like Leicester, Burnley and West Brom should be taken as a warning that they won't be pushovers, but it shouldn't also spook us too much.
As for form - well, the game is 1.5 months away.