The Carabao Cup is set to kick into high gear as the Premier League’s heavyweights join the competition in the third round next month. The top seven teams from the Premier League who qualified for the Champions League, Europa League or Europa Conference League this season were allowed to skip the first two rounds of matches. Only 32 teams will be involved in the third-round draw, which includes the 25 teams that triumphed in their second-round clashes, along with the seven European qualifiers.
Both Cardiff City and Swansea are in action for their second-round matches on Wednesday evening. The Bluebirds welcome Premier League Southampton to Cardiff City Stadium, while the Swans host League One Wycombe Wanderers. This season sees the introduction of a revamped draw system, where teams are divided into two groups. Group 1 will feature Champions League and Europa League clubs such as Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Tottenham and Manchester United. Group 2 will include all other teams, including Europa Conference League qualifiers Chelsea.
A preliminary draw will decide whether the six clubs in Group 1 will play at home or away for the first six matches in the third-round fixture list. The main draw will then begin with those initial six ties, which will be chosen by selecting one team from Group 1 and one from Group 2. The remaining 10 games will only involve teams from Group 2. In another change to the format, the third round of the Carabao Cup will be spread over two midweeks (w/c September 16 and w/c September 23) due to the new congested European schedule.
The pre-draw, which is set to determine the home or away positioning of the six Bowl 1 teams for the main draw, is slated to occur prior to Nottingham Forest’s face-off with Newcastle United, kicking off at 8pm (BST) on Wednesday, August 28. Following that match, the main draw will be conducted, hosted by Mark Chapman, with a projected start time of 10.15pm (BST). The Carabao Cup third-round draw can be viewed on Sky Sports Main Event or Sky Sports Football. It’s also anticipated to be live-streamed on Sky Sports Football’s YouTube channel. The ball numbers for the draw will be revealed on Wednesday morning.
Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea will all enter the Carabao Cup at the third round stage, with the draw set to include all these top teams and more. The draw is expected to bring excitement and anticipation for the upcoming fixtures. Stay tuned to find out which teams will face each other in the next round of the competition.