Leeds drawn away in a cup competition yet again shock horror
Thursday, 27th Aug 2026 10:46 by Tim Whelan
To the great surprise of absolutely none of us, Leeds have been drawn away from home in the third round of the Carabao cup. And it’s another game against Chelsea.
Things are complicated when it comes to the Carabao Cup third round draw these days, all thanks to UEFA scheduling the first round of group fixtures in their two most important club competitions over two separate weeks. Which means that our domestic fixtures have also have to be spread over two weeks so none of our clubs have to play two games in the same midweek.
Therefore the Carabao Cup draw had to ensure that the eight clubs involved in the Champions and Europa League avoided each other, so that for all the ties both teams would be available on one of the two midweeks assigned to this round of the competition.
But although Brighton are also in Europe this season, they were excluded from this part of the process because they will be taking part in the Conference League, the league phase of which doesn’t start until October. All clear?
So eight teams went into a ‘pre draw’, with one of them in each of the first eight ties, with another process deciding whether each of them would be at home or away. (I’m not sure how they did this bit, as I wasn’t watching Sky till they got to the main draw). All of which rather distorted the draw, giving the biggest clubs the advantage of not drawing each other, while everyone else had to take pot luck.
Once the draw began I was just celebrating the fact we’d got past the ‘clubs in Europe’ section without being drawn against any of them, when ‘Chelsea or Luton’ came out as a home team. ‘No’, I thought, with memories of the FA Cup semi-final being all too fresh in my mind. And with their ridiculously expensive squad, Chelsea will potentially be the best team not playing in Europe, in the unlikely event of getting their act together.
So of course I was groaning loudly a moment later, as we did indeed come out away to Chelsea or Luton, to continue our run of getting more than our fair share of away ties in both domestic cup competitions. Of course, I’m assuming that Chelsea will get through against Luton, but with that game being at Stamford Bridge it has to be fairly likely.
If you’re desperate to find out our third round opponents at the earliest opportunity, Chelsea v Luton is live on one of the Sky channels tonight. And if Chelsea do get through, our game will be one of six all-Premier League ties, after we’ve already played in the only all-Premier tie in round two.
Some of the ties will be played in week commencing September 7, and the rest in the following week commencing September 14. Which doesn’t leave us long to make travel plans, but we’ll just have to wait for the authorities to let us know when our game is going to happen.
_Reuters_