The first round of the Carabao Cup (League Cup to me and you) will be drawn this Friday at 10:45am.
The draw will be made in Vietnam (no idea why we can’t draw it in the UK) and the Saddlers will be ball number thirty-five in the Northern section of the draw.
The draw numbers for the Northern section are as follows
1. Accrington Stanley
2. Barnsley
3. Blackburn Rovers
4. Blackpool
5. Bolton
6. Bradford
7. Burton Albion
8. Bury
9. Carlisle
10. Crewe
11. Derby
12. Doncaster
13. Fleetwood
14. Grimsby
15. Hull
16. Leeds
17. Lincoln
18. Macclesfield Town
19. Mansfield
20. Middlesbrough
21. Morecambe
22. Nottingham Forest
23. Notts County
24. Oldham
25. Port Vale
26. Preston
27. Rochdale
28. Rotherham
29. Scunthorpe
30. Sheffield United
31. Sheffield Wednesday
32. Shrewsbury
33. Sunderland
34. Tranmere
35. Walsall
36. Wigan
Ties will be played week commencing 13th August.
Neighbours Aston Villa, WBA and Birmingham City are all in the southern section of the draw so we will end up with our annual League Cup game against Sheffield United or Nottingham Forest.
EFL clubs have voted to remove extra time from every round, apart from the Final, from the start of the 2018/19 season, with matches tied at 90 minutes going straight to a penalty shoot-out. The 2019 Final will feature extra time and penalties if required.
The format of penalties will revert to the traditional format, as opposed to the recently trialled ABBA formula, which will no longer feature in EFL competitions.
VAR will again be utilised in the competition and can be incorporated for all games that are played at Premier League stadiums.
This season’s Final will take place on Sunday 24 February 2019 with the winners guaranteed a place in the Europa League in the following campaign.
