New process for Carabao Cup third round draw | News

Wednesday night will see our Carabao Cup campaign begin as we learn our opponents in the third round - but this year the draw will be slightly different.

Due to the expansion of both the Champions League and the Europa League, two additional European matchweeks have been added to the calendar, which coincide with the Carabao Cup third round dates, which be staggered the weeks commencing 16th and 23rd September.

To ensure there is no clash of fixture dates for teams playing in these competitions, two bowls will be used for the draw - bowl one will contain the six teams who have reached the Champions League and Europa League - including ourselves - while bowl two has the other 26 clubs. This means that Manchester City, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Manchester United, Tottenham and ourselves cannot face each other in the third round.

Those six teams will be pre-drawn to determine whether they’ll be at home or away for the third round, and slotted separately into the first six ties. Then when the main draw gets underway, teams from pot 2 will be paired with one European team to complete the first six ties, and then the remaining 10 will be drawn from the rest of the teams in pot 2.

This will only be the case for the third round - the rest of the competition will follow the traditional free-draw format.

The draw will take place on Wednesday night following the conclusion of the Nottingham Forest v Newcastle United tie at the City Ground, and be shown live on Sky Sports.