Two Cup draws in a Defining Week for Villa
This week feels pivotal in shaping how Aston Villa’s season will unfold. Not only does it mark the final days of the transfer window, but it also includes a key home clash against last season’s tormentors, Crystal Palace — plus the draws for both the Carabao Cup and the Europa League.
Here are the details for both.
Carabao Cup Draw
Time: Evening of 27th August
Aston Villa will be one of nine Premier League teams involved in European competitions to join the Carabao Cup at the the third round stage. The draw for which will be on Wednesday night 27th August, after the conclusion of the Grimsby Town vs Manchester United game.
Because of the clash with Europa League fixtures, the third round will take place across two weeks in the second half of September.
Villa’s participation in the Europa League means their third round League Cup tie will be on either Tuesday 16th or Wednesday 17th September.
With Birmingham City already out, most Villa fans’ interest in the League Cup will likely be muted — especially with Unai Emery’s focus outside the Premier League expected to lean heavily toward the Europa League.
At least that’s one cup competition Villa are in that Crystal Palace aren’t. Palace may have knocked Villa out of both domestic cups last season, but UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules denied them the chance to make it a hat-trick in Europe.
UEFA Europa League Draw
Time: Draw ceremony starts on Friday 29 Aug, at 13:00 CET
Both the Europa League and Europa Conference League will be merged into a single show.
Unfortunately, the drama of the drawing of physical balls is a thing of the past, and instead a single button is pressed, triggering the random selection of opponents for each teams, including who plays are home and who plays away. There will be no matches between teams from the same league in the initial league stage.
The details of each team’s fixtures will be presented pot by pot.
It’s expected that the actual fixture order and dates will be released the following day, if it follows the protocol of last year.
Aston Villa will be in Pot 1 with their co-efficient rating of 47,250. The team with the highest co-efficent is AS Roma with 104,500. Nottingham Forest (23,039) will be in Pot 3, while Celtic are in Pot 2 (Rangers are still TBC, but would enter in Pot 1).
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