EFL Trophy

[pompeypete]

Post war record low attendance of 1, 300 for last nights match.

What joke competition..........


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[GreatBarrWolf]

Will be interesting to see the attendances in the next round of group games when all the Under 23's team are at home. How many of the so called 'smaller teams' will have fans travelling to the 'bigger' grounds?
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[DySporting]

You get the feeling that the academies are treating the cup in different ways. Some are just fielding academy players and young ones at that not bothered whether they win or lose it seems. The you have Norwich City…

Last night’s team at Barnet had £8 million Pritchard £7 million Canos £3 million Oliveria plus one of the Murphy twins who has scored in the Championship this season. All within the rules because 3 of those 4 are under 23.

Question is, which clubs are following the rules correctly West Ham who seemingly aren’t bothered or Norwich who are giving young players who aren’t in the starting first team 11 game time.

Oh yes and the BBC website needs to stop calling the teams U21 teams, they are U23!

[sharrowblade]

The young'un is a ball boy at Sheffield United.

Even he boycotted the game last night
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[littlewiggy]

I see Bradford City will likely get a reprimand for subbing their keeper after two minutes of the game last night.
This is down to the ridiculously thought-out rule that teams must play "at least five of the players that started the last league game."

So in short, it's fine and dandy for the Premier League / Championship clubs to use the competition to develop their young players, but not the actual clubs the trophy was intended for in the first place.

Their young players can go and screw themselves.
It's all about the Premier League innit.

Thank goodness the good supporters of the lower league clubs have made their thoughts on these cuckoos and the FL's meddling abundantly clear.

As each game passes, the FL and the competition's sponsors are being royally embarrassed.
Indeed I doubt any sponsor will touch it with the proverbial barge pole next year.
So yeah, take a well earned bow top brass!

[foxes1]

For our game at Grimsby last night we played 2 players with first team experience. So it looks like we are not taking it seriously at the minute. Will be interesting in later rounds if Premiership teams start putting more and more players with first team experience in the squads.

[Wullie]

Found on Facebook .

Look on the bright side. Low print run of programmes making them hard to obtain and ""VERY RARE "

[Tintowner]

[quote="Wullie"]Found on Facebook .

Look on the bright side. Low print run of programmes making them hard to obtain and ""VERY RARE "

[/quote

Grimsby had an attendance of 609 last night v Leicester City under 21s / 23s/ reserves or whatever.

There were at least 600 programmes printed (possibly more).....so expect the 'sold out on the night' brigade to sell them on ebay

[pompeypete]

Are the premiership supporters interested in this cup ??

Not by the above tables re away support

So well done

the leicester 27, everton 110, middlesbrough 27, wba 89

Not enough to keep this cup competition going thou...........

nb.
Pompeys gate was 92% down from saturday !!!
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[foxes1]

As a Leicester City fan who has been to all our games this season (inc Bruges) I decided I wouldn't bother with this cup. It should have been left as it was the Johnstone's Paint Trophy or whatever it's predecessor was. I can remember going to the Don Valley Stadium to watch Leicester in it when we were in League 1 play Rotherham on a cold November night and we took more than the total attendance was at Blundell Park that night, but then I suppose it had a meaning to it and it was a way of seeing one of the teams who don't get the limelight so often at Wembley.

[DySporting]

66 away fans at Rochdale v Notts County last night

[derby1884]

pompeypete wrote:

Post war record low attendance of 1, 300 for last nights match. What joke competition..........

"They" buggered about with a perfectly legitimate competition which has run for over 30 years now to the extent where the whole thing might possibly be scrapped forever from now on.

The competition's not a joke but the way they've tried to shoehorn the "big" clubs' Academy teams into it is.

Patronising isn't a strong enough word.
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[littlewiggy]

derby1884 wrote:

pompeypete wrote: Post war record low attendance of 1, 300 for last nights match. What joke competition.......... "They" buggered about with a perfectly legitimate competition which has run for over 30 years now to the extent where the whole thing might possibly be scrapped forever from now on. The competition's not a joke but the way they've tried to shoehorn the "big" clubs' Academy teams into it is. Patronising isn't a strong enough word.

I agree and that was kind of my point with the last two lines in my earlier post mate.

It's highly likely no sponsor will go near the thing now; it's also just as likely that its days are numbered thanks to this.

I'd imagine it's questionable whether the competition's integrity and reputation can recover from this, I think it's probably already tainted beyond repair now.

[Five and In]

The "Powers that be" consistently tinker with perfectly good competitions and screw them up big time.

A 48 team World Cup???
A World Cup in the middle of the desert???
Champions League group stage losers to drop into the Europa League as a safety net???
A 39th Premiership match played in Timbuktoo to claw in more money??? Thankfully, this one has gone quiet for now!!

In my opinion, the demise of the FA Cup began when Man Utd were pushed by the FA to play in a money making event in Brazil rather than defend the trophy that they had won the previous season.
The FA surrendered their own flagship competition for money, so nothing surprises me anymore and greed is always the winner.

The EFL Trophy was fine as it was prior to this season and the Premiership clubs should be nowhere near it. The result is apathy from pretty much everybody involved.
Bring back the reserve leagues to allow top flight clubs to blood their youngsters or give game time to excess squad members. It worked well enough years ago with much smaller squads than we have now.

Rant over....for now!!

[pompeypete]

Spot on 'five and in"


I, ve got an idea

Lets have a winter break for a couple of weeks......

Then instead of resting, lets go on a money spinning tour


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[sharrowblade]

Five and In wrote:

Bring back the reserve leagues to allow top flight clubs to blood their youngsters or give game time to excess squad members. It worked well enough years ago with much smaller squads than we have now.

But....we still have reserve Leagues (U23s, if you like)
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[foxes1]

I have an idea scrap the Champions League and just have the winners of each league in it as it should be, not the also rans that finish 2nd, 3rd and 4th and do it on a knock-out basis.
We could also have some sort of European Cup Winners Cup competition where just the cup winners go in it.
The also rans could then go into the Europa League, I mean they messed around with that so the winners of a fair play league go in it as well.
Bet no-one has thought of this