Carabao Cup 3rd round draw: Chelsea to face Macclesfield Town or Grimsby Town

The Carabao Cup might be the second least important competition Chelsea play this season after the one-off UEFA Super Cup we lost to Liverpool earlier this month, but it is always nice to add silverware to the trophy cabinet. In it to win it! — just ask Manchester City last season, who went on to claim a “quadruple” by winning the Premier League, the FA Cup, the aforementioned Carabao Cup ... and the Community Shield (ed.note: yeah, that still doesn’t count).

In the current iteration of this competition, Chelsea enter in the third round alongside all the other Premier League teams involved in European competitions. And our first opponents in the run to the Carabao Cup will be either Macclesfield Town or Grimsby Town, who will face each other on September 10 for the chance to face us at Stamford Bridge fourteen days later.

Both teams currently find themselves in League Two, which is the fourth tier of the English league system. At the moment, Macclesfield are faring a little bit better than Grimsby, with 9 points from 5 matches versus 8 from the latter.

Chelsea have only met Macclesfield once — a 6-1 home victory in the FA Cup third round back in January 2007 — but we have faced Grimsby 43 times in official games. Our last encounter was a 4-1 win in the FA Cup fifth round replay at the Bridge, back in February 1996. May this positive trend continue!

The full Carabao Cup third round draw is as follows:

CHELSEA vs. Macclesfield OR Grimsby
Wolverhampton vs. Reading
Oxford vs. West Ham
Watford vs. Swansea
Brighton vs. Aston Villa
Sheffield United vs. Sunderland
Colchester vs. Tottenham
Portsmouth vs. Southampton
Burton Albion vs. Bournemouth
Preston vs. Manchester City
MK Dons vs. Liverpool
Manchester United vs. Rochdale
Luton vs. Leicester
Sheffield Wednesday vs. Everton
Arsenal vs. Nottingham Forest
Crawley vs. Stoke City