Draw tonight at around 6.40pm. I've already seen discussion about it on two different separate threads so lets keep it in one place. Really hope we get an interesting tie for once.
Skates at home please. Playing them twice in two weeks would be fun and be a good opportunity for the players to put right that shambles in September. Other than then an away game at a ground we rarely visit with a decent allocation but not too far up north. We'll get something incredibly dull though I'm sure.
Wonder if the ceremony will be like FIFA World Cup draw. I wonder if there will be a peace prize award...
Transferred from Saints Stuff thread The Emirates FA Cup third round proper draw will be made on Monday 8th December, live on TNT Sports, with clubs from the Premier League and EFL Championship set to enter the competition. Pre-match coverage of the final second round tie between Brackley Town and Burton Albion will start at 6.30pm GMT on TNT Sports 1 and discovery+. The draw is scheduled for approximately 6.40 pm GMT and will also be streamed live on the TNT Sports YouTube channel. Darren Fletcher and Ally McCoist will present the coverage, and the draw will be made by Joe Cole and Peter Crouch. The third round will be played around the weekend of Saturday 10th January 2026. The ball numbers for the third round draw are listed below: 1. AFC Bournemouth 2. Arsenal 3. Aston Villa 4. Birmingham City 5. Blackburn Rovers 6. Brentford 7. Brighton & Hove Albion 8. Bristol City 9. Burnley 10. Charlton Athletic 11. Chelsea 12. Coventry City 13. Crystal Palace 14. Derby County 15. Everton 16. Fulham 17. Hull City 18. Ipswich Town 19. Leeds United 20. Leicester City 21. Liverpool 22. Manchester City 23. Manchester United 24. Middlesbrough 25. Millwall 26. Newcastle United 27. Norwich City 28. Nottingham Forest 29. Oxford United 30. Portsmouth 31. Preston North End 32. Queens Park Rangers 33. Sheffield United 34. Sheffield Wednesday 35. Southampton 36. Stoke City 37. Sunderland 38. Swansea City 39. Tottenham Hotspur 40. Watford 41. West Bromwich Albion 42. West Ham United 43. Wolverhampton Wanderers 44. Wrexham 45. Macclesfield 46. Grimsby Town 47. Shrewsbury Town 48. Swindon Town 49. Weston Super Mare 50. Barnsley 51. Boreham Wood 52. Milton Keynes Dons 53. Wigan Athletic 54. Fleetwood Town 55. Salford City 56. Mansfield Town 57. Cambridge United 58. Brackley Town or Burton Albion 59. Blackpool 60. Walsall 61. Exeter City 62. Cheltenham Town 63. Doncaster Rovers 64. Port Vale The FA.
Ideally itll be home to someone crap so we can rest our key players and give minutes to the likes of edozie, archer and robinson to build some form.
Really don't get why people wouldn't want to draw the skates. Surely it's almost always the one you're looking for in cup draws? Playing them twice in a fortnight would be a great opportunity to make up for September. Also a good chance it wouldn't be bubbled either which is arguably the best reason for wanting to draw them. Literally the only downside to it would be that the club would rob us blind on the ticket prices if it's at home.
Why wouldn't it be bubbled? FA Cup is at the weekend and they'd get a bigger allocation. I'd say it would almost certainly be bubbled.
Well apparently it takes months of planning to do and knowing when the games are 2 months in advance is a bit different to just over 4 weeks notice. The additional fans if here also adds an extra thing to sort. All of a sudden you need 35 coaches instead of 20 again on short notice. I'm not saying it definitely wouldn't be but I think there'd be a decent chance.
I think if there were crowd concerns over the existing plans for that game the police would push for a lower away allocation on safety grounds. They can reuse / adapt the existing plans for a bubble operation from last time (and the one that is already planned if the game is the other way around). Extra bodies on the ground is a factor of resource availability but they can be found. Same with coaches / drivers / stadium staff etc. I can't see this game (if the draw drops it) not being in a bubble else the last one would not have been either.
