As usual, Arsenal will field a reserve side. I wouldn't be surprised to see no recognised first team players at all, except perhaps Pascal Cygan. The game comes between league matches away to Man City and home to Tottenham, and a week either side there will be the 2 big games against Sparta Prague.

Sunderland came through the 2nd round with a 1-0 extra time win over Cheltenham. This comes after a home draw against the mighty West Brom, so they're on a bit of a high at the moment. But there's plenty of time between now and the 25th October.

A couple of weeks after the cup tie, Sunderland will come to Highbury in the Premiership. It's hard to fancy their chances in the league game, but it's worth remembering that in 2002-03, when they went down, we beat them 3-1 and 4-0 in the league, but lost to them 3-2, at Highbury, at the same stage of the cup competition. And that was quite a strong Arsenal team, for the League Cup anyway, featuring Kanu, Pires, Jeffers, Gio and (in one of his earliest games for Arsenal) Kolo Toure.

Grimsby, who put a full strength Tottenham side out this week, have been rewarded with another home game against Newcastle. The only vaguely interesting draw apart from that is Chelsea vs Charlton. Former Arsenal man Jay Bothroyd helped the latter through to this stage with a cracking debut goal against Hartlepool on Tuesday.

Here's the full draw from the BBC site.