Huge double Carabao Cup boost for Newcastle United as look to win it again | OneFootball

Newcastle United lifted the 2025 Carbao Cup at Wembley just over five months ago.

Their hopes of lifting it in successive years having been given a huge double boost.

The Carabao Cup second round matches are being played this midweek but Newcastle United are not involved.

United, along with the other clubs competing in European competitions this season, given a bye in the second round.

The second element of the double boost comes tonight, when the Carabao Cup third round draw is made, before AND after the Grimsby v Man U second round tie is concluded on Wednesday night.

The same as last year, there are modifications to the Carabao Cup third round draw, due to the expansion of the European competitions.

What this means is that teams competing in this season’s Champions League and Europa League will not face each other in the third round of the Carabao Cup.

Two separate bowls will be used for tonight’s third round draw, with the eight Champions League and Europa League teams in one and the remaining 24 clubs in the other.

A pre-draw will then take place to determine whether the eight Champions League and Europa League teams are playing at home or away.

This first draw will be made live on Sky Sports BEFORE the match between Grimsby and Man United, with the main draw happening after the game.

(Full details of the 2025/26 Carabao Cup were announced over two months ago, see below)

So tonight in the third round Carabao Cup draw, Newcastle United can’t face any of Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea, Villa, Tottenham or Nottingham Forest.

It gets even better though, as Tuesday night saw four Premier League clubs eliminated, with West Ham losing at Wolves, Bournemouth losing at home to Brentford, Leeds losing on penalties at Sheffield Wednesday, plus hilariously last night Sunderland at home to League One Huddersfield on penalties.

Tonight sees the four final Carabao Cup third round clubs confirmed – the four matches are Everton v Mansfield, Fulham v Bristol City, Oxford v Brighton and Grimsby v Man U.

Premier League teams Newcastle United could definitely face in the Carabao Cup third round:

Crystal Palace, Wolves, Brentford, Burnley

Lower division teams Newcastle United could definitely face in the Carabao Cup third round:

Reading, Cambridge, Doncaster, Barnsley, Port Vale, Wycombe, Lincoln, Cardiff, Southampton, Wrexham, Bradford, Huddersfield, Swansea, Wigan, Millwall, Sheffield Wednesday

What it means for Newcastle United?

When the third round draw is made tonight, Newcastle United will have 24 possible opponents. As things stand, only four of the 24 are guaranteed to be Premier League clubs, with a maximum eight of the 24 being Premier League clubs, depending on how Fulham, Everton, Brighton and Man U get on tonight. So at worst, Newcastle have a two in three (16 of 24) chance of drawing a lower league team.

A favourable draw tonight and if they win it, would see Newcastle United through to the last 16 (fourth round) and only a further two wins from a home and away semi-final.

The changes made to the Carabao Cup third round draw give a massive advantage now to clubs who are involved in the Champions League and Europa League.

When you look at last season’s Carabao Cup semi-finalists. Newcastle United were the odd ones out. With the other three being Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal, all of who were involved in Champions League or Europa League and had benefitted from the double boost that NUFC are also enjoying this season in the Carabao Cup.

Carabao Cup official EFL announcement – 12 June 2025:

This season’s Carabao Cup will require a Preliminary Round to be introduced ahead of Round One due to nine Premier League teams being involved in European competition in 2025/26.

The format of the Carabao Cup will be amended to introduce a four-team preliminary qualifying round, to reduce the number of Clubs in Round One and Round Two in order to accommodate all Premier League European Clubs in Round Three.

The Preliminary Round will consist of the two promoted Clubs from the National League (Barnet and Oldham Athletic) and the Clubs finishing in 21st and 22nd place in League Two (Accrington Stanley and Newport County). The ties will be regionalised North and South as per Round One, with Accrington playing Oldham and Barnet playing Newport County.

The Carabao Cup Round One Draw will take place live on Sky Sports News at 4:30pm on Thursday 26 June, as part of the EFL’s Fixture Release Day.

The Preliminary Round of the competition will also be drawn at this time to determine the home Clubs for the two ties.

Carabao Cup 2025/26 Round Dates The round dates for the Carabao Cup have been confirmed as the following: