EFL Cup 2026/27

EFL Cup 2026/27

Judio1999 said:
fanbanter.co.uk

Every Attendance of the Weekend – 9th August 2026 - Page 2 of 6 - Fan Banter

We continue our look at every attendance of the last few days. Time to check out the Carabao Cup First Round… 1) West Ham United (2) 3-1 (1) Portsmouth – 53,369 Good stadium, just not for football at all. Away end too spread out and broken up, can see why West Ham fans don’t like […]
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The bottom game on the list. There not sure as most left before they could count them.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Ridiculous

All they need to do is draw the 3 Europa League sides first

No reason why Arsenal cant play Man C
They both have 2nd week free to play
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Remember

If EITHER Chelsea or Brentford play a CL side in R3

Then our West London Derby match moves to Sat 19th at 8pm
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Watford getting drilled 0-5 at home to Peterborough
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Jay Bee said:

View: https://x.com/Carabao_Cup/status/2092190252794343681


Happy "The league cup third round draw is a BIG FIX!!!!" day, it seems to come around quicker every year.

R3 draw is on Wednesday before the Sky 8pm game (Preston v Everton).
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It's not a BIG FIX

They can't have a team in the CL play a team in the EL as they would be no midweek to play the match

Those teams have to play either i) each other or ii) a non-European game.

If you have a solution as to how to make a legitimate draw that accommodates i) then let us know.

Otherwise R3 is a very early in this competition and I can't get upset about the number of permutations being reduced by about 1%
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Hopefully a home draw in the next round.
Hasnt it been 7 out of the last 8 cup games have been away??!!
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Banana said:
It's not a BIG FIX

They can't have a team in the CL play a team in the EL as they would be no midweek to play the match

Those teams have to play either i) each other or ii) a non-European game.

If you have a solution as to how to make a legitimate draw that accommodates i) then let us know.

Otherwise R3 is a very early in this competition and I can't get upset about the number of permutations being reduced by about 1%
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Yes I know it's not a big fix, that part of the post was meant to be ironic as a few posters get upset about it every year
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

EFL Cup 2026/27

Banana said:
It's not a BIG FIX

They can't have a team in the CL play a team in the EL as they would be no midweek to play the match

Those teams have to play either i) each other or ii) a non-European game.

If you have a solution as to how to make a legitimate draw that accommodates i) then let us know.

Otherwise R3 is a very early in this competition and I can't get upset about the number of permutations being reduced by about 1%
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Sorry mate, I'm not having this. The Premier League clubs have the biggest squads and play less matches than any team in the EFL. The EFL Cup Final is in March so 2 months prior to the end of the football season. There is absolutely no way that this competition should be seeded just so poor little Arsenal or Man City can manage their "fixture congestion".
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

birdy67 said:
Sorry mate, I'm not having this. The Premier League clubs have the biggest squads and play less matches than any team in the EFL. The EFL Cup Final is in March so 2 months prior to the end of the football season. There is absolutely no way that this competition should be seeded just so poor little Arsenal or Man City can manage their "fixture congestion".
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It's to do with the third round clashing with two staggered European weeks. The seeding avoids a situation where say Arsenal v Palace is drawn and there is no midweek slot to play it.

I'd prefer they didn't have to this, too but part of the prestige of a cup tournament is that good teams want to take it semi seriously and win it. The alternative of forcing them to play 4 games in 8 days and so play reserves, is also bad for the competition. You could also give them a bye to round 4 or tell them to withdraw, but those are also bad outcomes in my opinion.

The fault is with UEFA for their bloated competition league stages.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Jay Bee said:
It's to do with the third round clashing with two staggered European weeks. The seeding avoids a situation where say Arsenal v Palace is drawn and there is no midweek slot to play it.

I'd prefer they didn't have to this, too but part of the prestige of a cup tournament is that good teams want to take it semi seriously and win it. The alternative of forcing them to play reserves is also bad for the competition.

The fault is with UEFA for their bloated competition league stages.
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Not having that either mate. They could easily put the balls back in the bag in the unlikely event that a team playing in the Champions League draws a team from the Europa League. This is all about the sponsors forcing us to do something that semi guarantees them having the top seeded teams in the final.

Give these teams a choice. Either you find a way of managing the congestion or withdraw from the competition. There are multiple ways of managing this, including extending the date for the final to allow an extra couple of weeks for each round. EFL clubs manage to play 46 league matches and two thirds of them have round 1 and possibly round 2 FA Cup plus round 1 EFL Cup matches to contend with. With smaller squads! No way should the big clubs be pandered to like this and I'd feel exactly the same had we made Europe this year. It was bad enough when they did away with replays as the poor Premier League teams couldn't cope, but this is purely and simply corrupt football.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

birdy67 said:
Not having that either mate. They could easily put the balls back in the bag in the unlikely event that a team playing in the Champions League draws a team from the Europa League. This is all about the sponsors forcing us to do something that semi guarantees them having the top seeded teams in the final.

Give these teams a choice. Either you find a way of managing the congestion or withdraw from the competition. There are multiple ways of managing this, including extending the date for the final to allow an extra couple of weeks for each round. EFL clubs manage to play 46 league matches and two thirds of them have round 1 and possibly round 2 FA Cup plus round 1 EFL Cup matches to contend with. With smaller squads! No way should the big clubs be pandered to like this and I'd feel exactly the same had we made Europe this year. It was bad enough when they did away with replays as the poor Premier League teams couldn't cope, but this is purely and simply corrupt football.
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I'm sorry you're not having it but it's just the way the fixture calendar is. Weeks and weeks are blocked out by European football now. UEFA provide limited windows for these games. Top flight teams are not allowed to clash with European nights most of the time.

Semi guaranteeing top seeds in the final? There's 32 teams left, and nothing to stop the Euro clubs from playing each other in round 4, round 5 or the semi finals.

I also think scrapping FA cup replays was poor but the idea that this seeding is "corrupt" is absurd, sorry. Going back 20 years used to seed the whole of round 2 so that every top flight team, and some Championship teams, got a lower division opponent, and nobody batted an eyelid about that.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Jay Bee said:
Going back 20 years used to seed the whole of round 2 so that every top flight team, and some Championship teams, got a lower division opponent, and nobody batted an eyelid about that
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We don't need to worry about that now as nearly half of those teams don't enter the competition until round 3. And then they're guaranteed to get a "lesser" team in the draw. Maybe some people have forgotten where we've come from. However you dress it up this doesn't sit right. It's really not very hard to re-draw two teams should a clash happen, which by the way is very very unlikely.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

birdy67 said:
We don't need to worry about that now as nearly half of those teams don't enter the competition until round 3. And then they're guaranteed to get a "lesser" team in the draw. Maybe some people have forgotten where we've come from. However you dress it up this doesn't sit right. It's really not very hard to re-draw two teams should a clash happen, which by the way is very very unlikely.
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But the principle was the same. It guaranteed all the best teams an easier tie. And all the lower league teams a better chance of a "glamour" tie. That was just accepted as a feature of the draw. The seeding was also a small benefit to finishing higher in tier 2 for a while.

I'd suggest nothing would come across more corrupt than publicly re-drawing part of a draw that has already taken place, and yet the outcome fairness wise would be virtually the same.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Jay Bee said:
But the principle was the same. It guaranteed all the best teams an easier tie. And all the lower league teams a better chance of a "glamour" tie. That was just accepted as a feature of the draw. The seeding was also a small benefit to finishing higher in tier 2 for a while.

I'd suggest nothing would come across more corrupt than publicly re-drawing part of a draw that has already taken place, and yet the outcome fairness wise would be virtually the same.
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Fair play, you don't see anything wrong with this. It's fair to say that most of the English football fan population definitely do though. No doubt some of the dickheads supporting Arsenal, Man City etc. love it. But I'd wager that even the majority of those fans would prefer to see a truly honest draw without any favouritism being given.

Put it another way, if it could be done somehow would you be all for it? Whether that be extending the play by dates for each round/the final, or giving clubs the choice of find a way of putting a team out or withdrawing if they can't?

I just don't see how anyone could be ok with the big clubs being certain of getting an easier draw until the latter stages when their resources are as ridiculously high as they are.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

birdy67 said:
Fair play, you don't see anything wrong with this. It's fair to say that most of the English football fan population definitely do though. No doubt some of the dickheads supporting Arsenal, Man City etc. love it. But I'd wager that even the majority of those fans would prefer to see a truly honest draw without any favouritism being given.

Put it another way, if it could be done somehow would you be all for it? Whether that be extending the play by dates for each round/the final, or giving clubs the choice of find a way of putting a team out or withdrawing if they can't?

I just don't see how anyone could be ok with the big clubs being certain of getting an easier draw until the latter stages when their resources are as ridiculously high as they are.
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If they could schedule the dates to avoid this R3 clash, yes I'd back that, that's the ideal solution. But I spent tedious time studying the fixture calendar when I was taking FPL very seriously and it really is hard to do that. I think they would have if they could have. And better to do this in an earlier round not in say round 5.

No I would not be in favour of forcing them to get by or withdraw (I won't repeat myself but see the middle bit of post 117).

I think it is an imperfect (but fine) solution in a world where the league cup could be killed off completely, or be massively reduced in status, before long, with a knock on effect on EFL finances.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

birdy67 said:
Fair play, you don't see anything wrong with this. It's fair to say that most of the English football fan population definitely do though. No doubt some of the dickheads supporting Arsenal, Man City etc. love it. But I'd wager that even the majority of those fans would prefer to see a truly honest draw without any favouritism being given.

Put it another way, if it could be done somehow would you be all for it? Whether that be extending the play by dates for each round/the final, or giving clubs the choice of find a way of putting a team out or withdrawing if they can't?

I just don't see how anyone could be ok with the big clubs being certain of getting an easier draw until the latter stages when their resources are as ridiculously high as they are.
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But they can’t extend the “play by” dates for each round, with European football and international breaks, there simply aren’t any other weeks available!

And “play by” dates are for the likes of County Cups (no disrespect intended)
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

westendbee said:
But they can’t extend the “play by” dates for each round, with European football and international breaks, there simply aren’t any other weeks available!

And “play by” dates are for the likes of County Cups (no disrespect intended)
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Absolute rubbish. The Final is in March, but our season ends in May. It would be simple to add another week or two to each round and as we're already talking about round 3 there would only be four further rounds affected. That equates to a further 4 to 8 weeks to get all matches played. Arsenal have effectively 3 players for each position in their squad and each of those three teams would be competitive in the Premier League. Are you telling me that they can't also cope with an extra midweek match against Fleetwood or Leyton Orient?

By the way the European leagues haven't even started yet but don't forget they get a bye for round 2 as well. And lets also remember that half of the privileged 8 are also guaranteed a home game as apparently that's too difficult to randomise as well. A chimpanzee would be able to work out a way of doing things better than this crock of sh*t.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

If it has to be fixed then the fairest way of doing it would be to have an or situation like there would be if there had been a replay outstanding. So you have the 4 Champions League clubs and the 4 Europa League clubs in separate pots. You draw one from each so say Arsenal from pot 1 and Palace from pot 2. If they draw Man City then it's Arsenal that plays them. If they draw Sunderland then it's Palace that plays them. If they draw any other random team then the draw continues randomly. Pretty simple and ensures that there are no complaints about corruption in sport.

But of course Carabao are never gonna go for that as their favourites might end up going out early!
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Its a simple issue
UEFA
If they had all their events in same week
We would have no issue
But they have decided to take 2 midweeks for 1st Group
1 for CL only
1 for EL only
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Judio1999 said:
Its a simple issue
UEFA
If they had all their events in same week
We would have no issue
But they have decided to take 2 midweeks for 1st Group
1 for CL only
1 for EL only
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It's not insurmountable but takes a bit of effort. Carabao won't make the effort as it's suits them to have two of the big six in pretty much every final since they've been sponsoring the tournament.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

birdy67 said:
Not having that either mate. They could easily put the balls back in the bag in the unlikely event that a team playing in the Champions League draws a team from the Europa League. This is all about the sponsors forcing us to do something that semi guarantees them having the top seeded teams in the final.

Give these teams a choice. Either you find a way of managing the congestion or withdraw from the competition. There are multiple ways of managing this, including extending the date for the final to allow an extra couple of weeks for each round. EFL clubs manage to play 46 league matches and two thirds of them have round 1 and possibly round 2 FA Cup plus round 1 EFL Cup matches to contend with. With smaller squads! No way should the big clubs be pandered to like this and I'd feel exactly the same had we made Europe this year. It was bad enough when they did away with replays as the poor Premier League teams couldn't cope, but this is purely and simply corrupt football.
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Putting the ball back in the bag should two teams draw each other is exactly the same outcome as seeding.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Lets just be clear. If Aston Villa only play their 8 games in Europe, get knocked out in their first trys in FA cup and League cup, they play 48 games.

Every Championship team will play 48 games at LEAST this season.

Every League One/Two team will play 50 games at LEAST this season.

I'd rather they were just kept away until the 4th round in all honesty.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Nada Bee said:
I'd rather they were just kept away until the 4th round in all honesty.
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But there are 9 teams in Europe this season... giving then all a bye until the last 16 would be mad.... and would take a lot of preliminary rounds to get the other 83 clubs down to just 7 spots.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Brentford_till_die said:
The draw is at approx 10:15pm, after the Preston v Everton game.

Pre draw is at 7:20pm.
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Thank you. I am certain that I heard that draw was before the game but either I got it wrong (with the two step process), or it changed. See you at 10:15 then.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Nada Bee said:
Lets just be clear. If Aston Villa only play their 8 games in Europe, get knocked out in their first trys in FA cup and League cup, they play 48 games.

Every Championship team will play 48 games at LEAST this season.

Every League One/Two team will play 50 games at LEAST this season.

I'd rather they were just kept away until the 4th round in all honesty.
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Sure, but EFL clubs have free midweeks in the New Year, the likes of Villa don’t, in case they progress to the later stages of European competition.

Everyone knows the rules of the Carabao Cup before the competition starts, this really isn’t a hill to die on.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Jay Bee said:
But there are 9 teams in Europe this season... giving then all a bye until the last 16 would be mad.... and would take a lot of preliminary rounds to get the other 83 clubs down to just 7 spots.
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On a slightly different note, the top 8 teams in last season’s Italian Serie A get a bye into the last 16 of this season’s Coppa Italia … and Italy only has 1 cup competition in which the Serie A clubs take part 😲
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

westendbee said:
On a slightly different note, the top 8 teams in last season’s Italian Serie A get a bye into the last 16 of this season’s Coppa Italia … and Italy only has 1 cup competition in which the Serie A clubs take part 😲
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Mad.
It's a bit like the women's league cup - the last time I checked, teams in the Champions League get to skip the entire group stage and they only have to win two KO games to reach the final.
Ties in with my earlier point though. If they instead sit out the tournament it ceases to be a "major trophy" and the men's league cup would be the same without say the CL teams.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

OK having run the numbers

We have a 1 in 3 chance of drawing a "european" club as the draw is being performed

If the draw permitting CL clubs to play other CL clubs, and EL clubs to play other EL clubs (which would be possible) then the chance increases to 1 in 3.44

However I can't see a neat way of performing such a draw. Putting balls back in the hat when a CL team is drawn against a CL team increases the odds of the CL team getting home draws, and it also runs the risk that the last 2 balls in the hat cannot play each other.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

I don't know if it has been said already but just make them all play away from home to even it up a bit. I recognise that this could affect the gate receipts of any 'minnows' left in thed draw however.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

DaveP said:
I don't know if it has been said already but just make them all play away from home to even it up a bit. I recognise that this could affect the gate receipts of any 'minnows' left in thed draw however.
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But that’ll never happen because the sponsors want the big teams in the final. So f*** the minnows and their ambitions to make money from a cup run. Just take what crumbs we give you and be thankful.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Banana said:
Putting the ball back in the bag should two teams draw each other is exactly the same outcome as seeding.
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Not quite. There isn’t an issue with a champions league team playing another champions league team. But this system effectively ensures that none of the 8 European teams (excluding Brighton) can meet each other regardless of which competition they’re in.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

birdy67 said:
Not quite. There isn’t an issue with a champions league team playing another champions league team. But this system effectively ensures that none of the 8 European teams (excluding Brighton) can meet each other regardless of which competition they’re in.
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Yes I know.

But designing a draw that would let CL teams met CL teams but not EL teams (and vice versa) is problematic. As per my post above. It increases the chances of CL/EL teams being drawn at home AND you run the risk of the last balls in the draw creating invalid ties.
 

EFL Cup 2026/27

Obviously it’s not going to change as Carabao are happy with the status quo as are the 8 European clubs, but I can’t help feeling it’s bad for football in general and smaller clubs in particular. The FA Cup will be next, mark my words. Fixture congestion will be the argument as usual. Which is disgraceful from any Premier League club in my opinion.
 
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