2026-27 Carabao Cup: Second Round – Birmingham vs Brentford

Birmingham City meet Brentford in the second round of the 2026-27 Carabao Cup. 

Victory would see Birmingham reach the third round for the first time since the 2015-16 season, whilst Brentford seek to advance beyond this stage for a seventh consecutive season.

 

Team News

Birmingham City have no fresh injury concerns to report after their 2-2 draw against Bristol City in the Championship.

Brentford have no fresh injury concerns to report following their 3-0 Premier League victory against Tottenham.

Sepp van den Berg and Antoni Milambo remain sidelined with respective groin and ACL injuries.

 

When is Kick-Off?

Birmingham City host Brentford at St Andrew’s on Tuesday 25 August at 8pm BST, live on Sky Sports+ in the UK.

 

Stat Attack

• Birmingham City won their only previous League Cup tie against Brentford 4-3 on penalties at home following a 1-1 draw in October 2010.
• Brentford have lost just one of their last five visits to Birmingham City in all competitions (W2, D2, L1).
• Birmingham have lost each of their last five League Cup ties against Premier League opposition (L5), although they lost to Stoke on penalties after a 4-4 draw in fourth round of 2013-14 edition.
• Brentford have won each of their last five League Cup ties against lower-league opposition (W5), although they needed penalties to beat Newport and Sheffield Wednesday in August 2023 and October 2024 respectively after 1-1 draws.

 

Prediction

Having scrapped their way to a comeback draw against Bristol City, Birmingham City know that they’re in for another difficult test where their defending needs to be much better but I expect Chris Davies to rotate his squad ahead of their Hollywood derby trip to Wrexham.

Brentford manager, Keith Andrews will too rotate after an impressively ruthless display against Tottenham with the likes of Mikkel Damsgaard and Callum Wilson starting, which actually shows their squad depth quality coming into a game which could easily be a banana skin tie.

In fact I just think that Andrews’ Bees will have too much for Birmingham but this should still be an enjoyable clash.

Prediction: Birmingham City 1-2 Brentford