Man City Carabao Cup tie complicated by Manchester United fixture issue

A date is set to be confirmed for Manchester City's Carabao Cup third-round tie against Watford today (Wednesday) after the first scheduling issue around the revamped football calendar emerged.

The extended UEFA calendar for Champions League and Europa League group stages has created the problem around City's Etihad date for the Watford tie and discussions have taken place between the EFL, UEFA and the Premier League to try and resolve it.

City face Arsenal at 4.30pm on Sunday, September 22 and and then travel to Newcastle for a 12.30pm kick-off on Saturday, September 28. Both those ties have already been moved for live TV coverage and supporters would have made plans for those dates and times.

ALSO READ: I want to make my family proud at Man City - Pep Guardiola is helping

ALSO READ: 'The facts' - Ten Hag and Solskjaer disagree on United progress

That means Wednesday, September 25 is the only suitable date for City to play Watford, but Manchester United are playing FC Twente at Old Trafford on the same evening and it's understood Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have been reluctant to green light both teams playing at home on the same night. The last time that happened was in October 2015.

An obvious solution would have been to schedule United's Europa League tie for the following evening. They play Southampton in the Saturday lunchtime kick-off the previous weekend and then face Tottenham at home at 4.30pm on the following Sunday, which means they would be able to play on a Thursday night.

But under UEFA's new group stage schedule, all Europa League fixtures for matchday one are scheduled to take place over Wednesday and Thursday of that week and it is understood the governing body insisted United's tie would be