Clubs who reach Europe face risk of fixture chaos

Premier League clubs who qualify for Europe face unprecedented fixture chaos next season and could even be forced to field junior players in the Carabao Cup.

Pep Guardiola had warned that Manchester City may have to pick a team of elite development squad players in the competition, during a rant against the scheduling of their FA Cup semi-final win over Chelsea on the BBC last weekend.

The calendar sent to clubs for next season reveals the City manager was right to be concerned, as well as laying bare the reasons for the scrapping of FA Cup replays.

Telegraph Sport has learnt that the expansion of European club competitions and the Club World Cup has resulted in the start of the revamped Champions League and Europa League clashing with match-weeks earmarked for the third round of the Carabao Cup.

The third round has been split over two match-weeks – starting Sept 16 and 23 – to help make it possible for such teams to play their Carabao Cup tie in their respective free midweeks. However, that will depend on a team in the Champions League not drawing a team in the Europa League, which would result in a direct clash with one of their European fixtures.

A potentially even more problematic clash could occur in relation to the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup, which are scheduled for the week commencing Dec 16.

That is the same week as the final group games in the Europa Conference League and a week after match-day six in both the Champions League and Europa League.

Again, were a team in the thirdtier European competition to make it to the last eight of the Carabao Cup, their fixture could be moved to the previous midweek. However, that would fall apart if they were to draw a team in the Champions League or Europa League.

The Carabao Cup draw could be engineered to try to avoid such clashes, although that would go against tradition and may also prove futile if too many teams in Europe progressed to the latter stages of the competition.