The draw for Round Three of the Carabao Cup will take place live on Sky Sports following the conclusion of Grimsby Town’s Round Two tie against Manchester United on Wednesday 27 August. Should the Reds be successful in tonight's Carabao Cup Round Two clash at Oakwell against Rotherham United, our opponents will be revealed tomorrow evening. Following the expansion of the European competition calendar ahead of the 2024/25 season, the EFL will again be required to implement additional conditions for the Carabao Cup Round Three draw. In-line with last year’s competition, this season’s Carabao Cup Round Three fixtures will take place across two weeks (beginning 15 and 22 September), with fixtures in the Champions League (week beginning 15 September) and Europa League (week beginning 22 September) also scheduled during this period. As UEFA competition fixtures cannot be rescheduled, and to enable the Carabao Cup to proceed within its agreed schedule without disrupting other League or domestic cup fixtures, the additional conditions will ensure that Clubs participating in the Champions League or Europa League cannot meet each other in Round Three of the League Cup. This will ensure that both teams drawn in each tie will be able to fulfil the fixture in one of the allocated weeks. It would always be the EFL’s preference to conduct the draw in the traditional manner, but these changes have been forced upon us for the second season in succession as a result of UEFA’s failure to consult with the Leagues of Europe prior to finalising its competition schedule. These conditions will not be required for ties in Round Four. Draw mechanic The Round Three draw consists of 32 Clubs – 23 winners from Round Two along with the nine Premier League Clubs competing in UEFA competitions. The UEFA Conference League, a competition Crystal Palace FC will be participating in should they qualify, is due to begin in October and therefore has no scheduling impact on the Carabao Cup Round Three draw. For the main draw, two separate bowls will be utilised – one consisting of the eight UCL and UEL Clubs, and one consisting of 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. 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. From this round of the competition, the draw is no longer regionalised into northern and southern sections. Ball numbers for the main draw will be announced on the morning of Wednesday 27 August. Continue reading...
I've deciphered that as meaning all the teams playing in Europe get an "easier" route to the 4th round as the "big" clubs can't meet. I'm not convinced of the veracity of the EFL's outrage at this. Obviously the by product of this is that if we beat Rotherham there's a slightly better chance of us drawing a bigger club. In reality it'll still be Doncaster or Port Vale away.
McGoldrick has an xG of 2.99 this season. Which means he 'ought' to be on three goals. But he's got two. That'll be the couple of sitters he's missed in the last two games. So you'd assume he should have an xG of 4. But the one he scored against Bolton would have been something like a 0.2 xG as it was from a tight angle. Interestingly, Josh Koroma is outperforming his xG (1.03). He has three goals. I'm assuming two were very difficult chances. And it's why Caylan Vickers is outperforming his (0.2). Both of his goals were from outside the box. They were shots that you wouldn't 'expect' to go in. I do accept that it's a pretty weird and confusing piece of data. But I can see why it's used. FWIW, we're second in the league for xG as a team, with 8.06. We have seven goals. Some contrast with tonight's opponents who are 24th having scored four times with an xG of 3.23.
So in summary, a pessimist would view a high xG as bad, in that we are creating loads of chances but can't finish them and to an optimistic it's good because atleast we're creating chances so eventually some should go in?
Yes nothing about a press conference on our You Tube channel. Let's hope the players are more bothered about the game than our media department that haven't put a thing up.