EFL Announce Third Round Draw Details in 2026-27 Carabao Cup

EFL have announced details of the third round draw in the 2026-27 Carabao Cup.

This stage sees the nine teams who qualified for UEFA competitions enter the tournament, including title holders – Manchester City and runners-up, Arsenal.

Both teams alongside Manchester United, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Brighton received byes to this stage, but Brighton won’t be seeded because they’re in the UEFA Conference League which doesn’t begin their League Phase until October.

Fabian Hurzeler’s Seagulls however still need to win their play-off against Tromso in order to qualify for that phase, with that tie currently locked at 0-0 on aggregate going into the second leg tomorrow (27 August).

Arsenal, Man City, Man Utd, Villa, Liverpool, Bournemouth and Sunderland however will be seeded to avoid any of those eight teams meeting, due to the opening League Phase rounds of Champions League and Europa League clashing with the third round of this competition.

That means that Arsenal, Man City, Man Utd, Villa and Liverpool will play their third round ties across 15-16 September, whilst Bournemouth, Sunderland and Palace will play their ties across 8-9 September a week earlier.

There will also be a pre-draw at around 7:20pm BST prior to Preston’s televised second-round tie against Everton at Deepdale tonight live on Sky Sports to determine which of the eight seeded teams will be at home or away, before the main draw takes place after the match at around 10:15pm.

The first eight ties of the main draw will alternate between separate bowls involving non-seeded and seeded teams, before the remainder of the ties are drawn from Bowl 2.