Fans fuming over ‘fixed’ Carabao Cup draw

Many fans have expressed their displeasure towards the Carabao Cup Third Round draw held on Wednesday night .

For the first time, the third-round draw was done through a seeding system, which was introduced to prevent English clubs playing in Europe from facing one another.

Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Arsenal are participating in the UEFA Champions League while Tottenham and Manchester United have secured their spots in the Europa League.

Chelsea have to avoid defeat against Servette tonight in the second leg of the Europa Conference to book a spot in the competition’s group stage.

Defending champions Liverpool will face West Ham at Anfield, Arsenal have been drawn against League One side Bolton Wanderers, Manchester City will face Watford at the Etihad and Aston Villa will travel away to Wycombe Wanderers.

Manchester United will play host to Barnsley at Old Trafford while Barrow, who will be playing in the third round since the 1967/1968 season, will square up with Chelsea at the Stamford Bridge.

The draw hasn’t been received well by fans who think the bigger teams are being handed an advantage.
Reacting on X, a fan wrote:

The game has been stolen from working class fans and it’s never coming back

Wait and see what it looks like in 5-10 years. LFC won’t even be playing in Liverpool. 

Probably not even in England
Fight back now or several English clubs will be franchised off within the next decade.

Another said:

The European teams play the week after everyone else.. why couldn’t they play each other? Total bollocks

Another interesting comment read:

What a load of tosh. There was no reason whatsoever that clubs needed to get a guaranteed home draw. Also there was no reason they needed a bye into the next round. Everyone should have played bar Chelsea in this round.

The reason for seeding the European teams for the draw was to avoid fixture congestion, a reason that hasn’t been accepted by many.

 Coincidentally, the competition has been won by Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea or Manchester United since the 2012/2013 season, establishing the dominance of the bigger teams in the competition.