With the 2026-27 season still in its early stages, Liverpool and Chelsea will already be looking at the Carabao Cup as a realistic route to silverware. The competition has taken on added importance after Arsenal\u2019s surprise defeat to League Two side Fleetwood Town on Tuesday removed one major rival from the picture.<\/p>\n
That result has sharpened the focus on Wednesday\u2019s fourth-round tie at Anfield, where Liverpool and Chelsea will meet knowing one of them is guaranteed to leave the competition. With the rest of the round not yet completed, the winner will move a step closer to a trophy that now looks more open than it did at the start of the campaign.<\/p>\n
The wider history of the competition underlines that point. Aside from Newcastle United\u2019s triumph in 2025, the Carabao Cup has been won by one of England\u2019s \u201cBig Six\u201d every year since 2013. Since Leicester City\u2019s success in 2000, only five other winners have come from outside Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.<\/p>\n
This season, however, several of those familiar contenders have already fallen away. Man Utd and Tottenham exited in the third round, while Arsenal are now out as well. Another heavyweight will go on Wednesday when Liverpool host Chelsea, and the quarterfinals will then feature no more than two of the Big Six.<\/p>\n
Manchester City remain involved too, and their own fourth-round meeting with third-placed Brighton & Hove Albion will remove another leading threat. Even so, the shape of the draw has left both Liverpool and Chelsea with a genuine opportunity.<\/p>\n
Of Liverpool\u2019s four possible trophies this season, the Carabao Cup is the least glamorous alongside the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup. Yet the chance to win it is real, and Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola appears to understand that his best opportunity for silverware in his first season at Anfield may have already arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal\u2019s exit leaves Liverpool and Chelsea with a clearer path in the Carabao Cup this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,175],"tags":[1066,59],"class_list":["post-22099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","tag-carabao-cup","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}