Aston Villa drawn away to Colchester in EFL Cup 1st Round

Aston Villa will travel to Colchester United in the first round of the Carabao Cup (The EFL League Cup’s newest sponsor). The U’s finished 8th in the League Two table in 2016/2017.

As a seeded team in the EFL Cup, Villa were assured of not drawing a fellow Championship side in the first round draw. That came to fruition as Aston Villa drew League Two’s Colchester United away.

For a complete list of fixtures, visit the EFL’s official website in the link provided.

To limit travel costs, the competition’s first round was split into a “North” and “South” section with Villa commandeering a place in the south. 34 clubs went to the north, while 36 went to the south. That accounts for 70 places of the total 92 clubs in England’s football pyramid.

The Premier League accounts for 20 of those with the further two being seeded clubs from the Championship. Those 22 teams will enter the competition sometime after the completion of the first round.

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The first round will take place the weekend of August 7th, 2017.

Aston Villa have played Colchester United a total of three times in the pair’s history, according to 11v11.

The last match took place in September 1979 with Colchester recording a 2-0 victory. All three matches took place under the League Cup with Aston Villa victorious in the former two matches.

With an early August time frame, this match gives Steve Bruce an early chance to experiment with his squad. Hopefully the claret and blues don’t pull another loss to a lower-league side.

Leyton Orient and Luton Town are sobering reminders of such defeats.