The League Cup semi-final draw will be held tonight, despite the fact that Arsenal won’t know whether they’ve reached that stage until next week.
The EFL have confirmed that the draw for the League Cup semi-final will be held on Wednesday night, in spite of the fact that only three of the four quarter-final ties will have been played.
Chelsea defeated Cardiff City on Tuesday, so they’re the only team guaranteed a semi-final place at the time of writing. But Manchester City will play Brentford and Newcastle United will play Fulham before the draw is made on Sky Sports following the Newcastle game.
Six days later, Arsenal will play their quarter-final against Crystal Palace, with both teams already knowing their potential semi-final opponent well in advance.
If Arsenal progress, their semi-final matches will fall during the week commencing January 12th and the week commencing February 2nd.
That means the first leg would fall between the FA Cup tie away to Portsmouth (Jan 11th) and the away match against Nottingham Forest (Jan 17th), and the second leg would be between an away game against Leeds United (Jan 31st) and a home game against Sunderland (Feb 7th).
If you stick two games against Manchester City in those slots, for example, it’s definitely not going to make the schedule look any more forgiving than it does currently.
The order of the two semi-finals should also be determined by the draw, so Arsenal will know whether progression would mean a trip away from home on January 13th-14th or February 3rd-4th.