Everything Aston Villa fans need to know about the Carabao Cup third round dates and draw

Aston Villa will find out their first League Cup opponents of 2025/26 on Wednesday 27th August.

The third round draw of this season’s Carabao Cup will take place after the second round tie between Grimsby Town and Manchester United at Blundell Park and will introduce for the first time the teams involved in European club competitions.

Those nine Premier League clubs will join the 23 winning sides from the second round, making up the League Cup’s round of 32.

Because of the expanded European competitions, the draw will not be completely open. With the Europa League and Champions League clashing with the third round of the League Cup, provisions will be made for clubs participating in both.

There are eight of those – Crystal Palace will play in the Conference League, if they make it, and that starts later – and Villa are one of them.

How will the Carabao Cup draw work?

Two separate bowls will be used for the third round draw. The first will contain Villa and the seven other clubs in the Europa League or Champions League. The other will contain the remaining 24 clubs.

“As the balls will be split across two pots, a pre-draw will be required first to determine whether each of the eight UCL/UEL teams will be playing home or away. This will be drawn live on Sky Sports during the build-up to Grimsby Town’s Round Two tie against Manchester United,” according to the EFL.

“For the main draw, the first eight ties will be drawn by alternating between one club from Bowl 1 and one club from Bowl 2, with the home/away positioning of the UCL/UEL team already pre-determined in the earlier draw.

“Once the first eight ties featuring the UCL/UEL teams have been drawn, the remaining eight ties will then be drawn from Bowl 2 only.”

The third round draw will not be regionalised into northern and southern sections.

When is the Carabao Cup third round?

Because of the clash with the Europa League and Champions League gameweeks, the third round will take place across two weeks in the second half of September.

The teams participating in the Europa League will be among those playing their third round ties on the week commencing 15th September, so Villa’s first game in the Carabao Cup will be scheduled on Tuesday 16th or Wednesday 17th September.

The teams in the Champions League will be among those playing in the third round of the League Cup on the week commencing 22nd September.

Villa reached the fourth round of last season’s Carabao Cup. After defeating Wycombe Wanderers they were knocked out by Palace at the end of October.

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