Town boss McCarthy isn’t too concerned about who the Blues are paired with in this evening’s draw for the second round of the Carabao Cup.

The draw will take place live on Sky Sports News at 10pm following tonight’s tie between Bury and Sunderland.

The Blues are among the unseeded sides in the draw, which has been regionalised to avoid West Ham and Newport - whose grounds are both unavailable in the week commencing Monday 21st August when the ties take place - meeting one another.

McCarthy says he didn’t know the Blues could meet Premier League opposition at this stage with AFC Bournemouth, Brighton, Crystal Palace, Southampton, Swansea, Watford and the Hammers all among Town’s potential opponents.

“I wasn’t aware of that,” he said. “Those kind of things don’t bother me because I can’t do a thing about it. They all get thrown in a hat, it doesn’t matter what we are, I’ll take what comes and I’ll plan and we’ll try and win the game.

“If we got a big Premier League club it would be nice. I guess what we don't want is a League Two side because we’re not particularly good against them down at Portman Road, are we? But we might be now it’s the Carabao Cup - change of name, change of luck.”

McCarthy is keen to have a run in the competition with the additional games giving the squad’s younger players a chance to get more first-team games under their belts, although at the moment the likes of Flynn Downes and Tristan Nydam are in the Championship squad due to the number of senior midfielders out injured.

“They’ll be travelling with us tomorrow, they’ll be involved at some point, they’ll probably on the bench,” the Blues boss added.

“But yes, that cup competition, the Carabao Cup, does give us a [chance to do that]. But I didn't want to do that [at Luton].

“As I said the other night, that’s the toughest game of the year that one, that we have on Tuesday, and I didn’t deliberately do that.

“If Tommy Smith had been fit he would have played. If Wardy had been fit he would have played. I wanted to win the game.

“I'd have played Didzy, no question of that because I wanted him to get his game. It’s a chance to play them, but also we’d had that goodwill from the weekend and I didn’t want to lose on Tuesday, that might be the same whatever we get.”

South Seeds
1 AFC Bournemouth"
2 Brentford"
3 Brighton & Hove Albion
"4 Cardiff City"
5 Crystal Palace"
6 Fulham
"7 Norwich City
"8 Reading
"9 Southampton
"10 Swansea City"
11 Watford"
12 West Ham United

South Non-Seeds
13 Barnet
"14 Birmingham City
"15 Bristol City"
16 Bristol Rovers
"17 Burton Albion"
18 Charlton Athletic
"19 Cheltenham Town"
20 Ipswich Town"
21 Millwall"
22 Milton Keynes Dons
"23 Queens Park Rangers"
24 Wolverhampton Wanderers

North Seeds
1 Aston Villa"
2 Burnley"
3 Derby County/Grimsby Town
"4 Huddersfield Town
"5 Hull City"
6 Leeds United
"7 Leicester City"
8 Middlesbrough"
9 Newcastle United"
10 Sheffield Wednesday
"11 Stoke City"
12 West Bromwich Albion"
13 Sunderland/Barnsley

North Non-Seeds
14 Bury/Barnsley
"15 Accrington Stanley
"16 Blackburn Rovers
"17 Bolton Wanderers
"18 Carlisle United"
19 Doncaster Rovers"
20 Newport County
"21 Nottingham Forest
"22 Rochdale"
23 Rotherham United
"24 Scunthorpe United"
25 Sheffield United"
26 Wigan Athletic

Photo: TWTD

jas0999 added 19:12 - Aug 10 Agreed. Shows what a poor season we had last year when you look at those seeds and the fact we are not one of them! Still, hoping for better this year!
2

GeoffSentence added 19:28 - Aug 10 Haha. I really am not surprised that Mick didn't know what happened in the second round.
3

dirtydingusmagee added 12:08 - Aug 12 Mick , strikes again .
0

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