Carling Cup Third Round Draw on Saturday

After beating Hartlepool 2-1 at Victoria Park last night, the Clarets will now be in the hat for the third-round draw of the Carling Cup.

The Clarets will find out who they will be up against when the draw is made live on Sky Sports News on Saturday at around 12.15pm.

Clarets fans at Stamford Bridge this Saturday therefore will know who they face by the time the Chelsea game kicks-off at the early time of 12:45 pm.

This time the draw will be unseeded and the heavy weights will enter the competition from the Premier League.

I think that most Clarets fans would wish to avoid playing the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton since let’s face it we will have played them all in the Premier League by the time the Carling Cup ties are played scheduled for the week commencing 21st September.

The only other Top 5 club from the Premier League of course is Arsenal and it would be utterly boring to face them again after playing them three times in various cup competitions in the last two seasons.

With the games unseeded though there is always the possibility we could face deadly rivals Blackburn Rovers giving the East Lancashire Police fuel for thought! Preston North End or Leeds would also be juicy matches.

The full list of potential opponents is as follows:

Premier League Clubs

Manchester United
Liverpool
Chelsea
Arsenal
Everton
Aston Villa
Birmingham
Bolton
Fulham
Hull
Manchester City
Portsmouth
Stoke City
Sunderland
Tottenham Hotspur
West Ham
Wolves

Championship Clubs

Barnsley
Blackpool
Cardiff City
Newcastle United
Nottingham Forest
Peterborough
Preston
QPR
Scunthorpe
West Brom

Lower League Clubs

Carlisle
Leeds
Port Vale

Normally of course Clarets fans would all be hoping for a juicy tie against one of the moneybags clubs, but we are not in the Championship anymore and perhaps dont need the money as much as we used to.

The strategy this time might be to hope for an easier path against lower league sides whilst avoiding potential banana skins away from home.

Plotting a path to Wembley before playing the Big 5 (or is it Big 6 now with Manchester City?) might ultimately pay more dividends in terms of megabucks! Let’s hope whatever happens we can go one better than last season after the bitter defeat by Spurs over two legs in the Carling Cup Semi-Final!

So who do you want in the next round? Why not tell us below this article or in our forums.