Then, for whatever reasons, the EFL released their fixtures a week after the Premier League. There was an appetiser for EFL fans on the eve of fixture release day, the draw for the first round of the League Cup was made.
This year, the release dates will again be staggered. The Premier League schedule will be announced this Wednesday, 14 June, the EFL games will be revealed a week later on 21 June, and the draw for the League Cup – now called the Carabao Cup – will be made this Friday, 16 June.
The competition will again be seeded and regionalised in the first round.
Sunderland will be in the hat on Friday, but the other relegated sides – Hull and Middlesbrough – will come in at the second round stage.
There will be 34 teams in the northern section and 36 in the southern, with Charlton and Gillingham being two of the 18 seeded teams.
Having finished 13th in League One the Addicks would normally have just missed out on being seeded. But reducing the teams involved in the first round from 72 to 70 worked in their favour.
They will play one of the following 18 teams:
AFC Wimbledon
Barnet
Cambridge
Cheltenham
Colchester
Crawley
Exeter
Forest Green Rovers
Gillingham
Newport
Luton
Northampton
Plymouth
Portsmouth
Stevenage
Swindon
Wycombe
Yeovil
The draw will be made at 1.00pm on Friday, and can be seen live on the EFL’s Carabao Cup Facebook page.
The games will be played during week commencing 7 August.