Rival Watch

[Ascotexgunner]

Huddersfield will kick themselves.....Could have won that.

[windermereROYAL]

Not the end of the world, we go above them with a win tomorrow.

[Loafer]

Not the end of the world, we go above them with a win tomorrow.

100% wonr happen, if it does i wont post for a week

[windermereROYAL]

Burnley will clinch the title on Saturday if they beat the fakes.

[tidus_mi2]

Could have been better, could have been worse, just have to do our job tomorrow now.

[Stranded]

We will get a result tomorrow and will be out of the bottom 3. Probably.

[Royal_jimmy]

Cardiff losing is good news. Wigan winning but I'll be surprised if they hold on

[Royal_jimmy]

Relegation it is then

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Apologies if covered elsewhere but Burnley facing investigation following changes made against us, which Colin raised last week. Bit OTT calling it match fixing.

Bit rich coming from them when they rested a whole side before the playoffs (Stam season) which let to Birmingham surviving.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... ading.html

[morganb]

Apologies if covered elsewhere but Burnley facing investigation following changes made against us, which Colin raised last week. Bit OTT calling it match fixing.

Bit rich coming from them when they rested a whole side before the playoffs (Stam season) which let to Birmingham surviving.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... ading.html

Saw that earlier. Turns out to be a bit of a non-story as the BBC quote regulations -

The regulations also state that "from the fourth Thursday in March, any team sheet for a league game should include at least 10 outfield players who featured on the team sheet for the league game before".

The team sheet includes substitutes and Burnley had 14 players on the team sheet who had also been in the matchday squad of 18 for the previous game.

BBC News - Burnley 'asked for observations' over team changes by EFL
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65364537

[Clyde1998]

Apologies if covered elsewhere but Burnley facing investigation following changes made against us, which Colin raised last week. Bit OTT calling it match fixing.

Bit rich coming from them when they rested a whole side before the playoffs (Stam season) which let to Birmingham surviving.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... ading.html

Saw that earlier. Turns out to be a bit of a non-story as the BBC quote regulations -

The regulations also state that "from the fourth Thursday in March, any team sheet for a league game should include at least 10 outfield players who featured on the team sheet for the league game before".

The team sheet includes substitutes and Burnley had 14 players on the team sheet who had also been in the matchday squad of 18 for the previous game.

BBC News - Burnley 'asked for observations' over team changes by EFL
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65364537

Nothing will happen with this (although it would be good if Burnley got a points deduction giving Sheffield United something to play for against Huddersfield). They were clearly within the regulations with their squad against us.

I don't see why if a player is registered with a club, they can't use them. Burnley have used 27 players this season (23 started), compared to 30 (25 started) for us and 40 (33 started) for Huddersfield - so it's not even like they've used an abnormally high number of players this season either.

The changes they made against us were:
GK - Arijanet Muric -> Bailey Peacock-Farrell - 25 caps for Northern Ireland; started 28 games for Leeds in the 2018-19 season prior to joining Burnley.
CB - Taylor Harwood-Bellis -> Ameen Al-Dakhil - January signing from the Belgian league (where he was a regular for Sint-Truidense in the Belgian Pro League); started twice before playing us including against Middlesbrough (two games before they played us). Current Belgium U21 international.
LB - Ian Maatsen -> Charlie Taylor - Started the league season for Burnley and was a regular for them in the Premier League last season.
CM - Jack Cork -> Johann Berg Gudmundsson - 84 caps for Iceland, including five at the Euros and two at the World Cup; has started about half of Burnley's games this season.
CM - Josh Brownhill -> Scott Twine - Summer signing from Milton Keynes; got injured early in the season and appears to have missed half the season because of it. Was his second start; scored in the following game against Rotherham.
FW - Ashley Barnes -> Benson Manuel Hedilazio - Summer signing from Antwerp. Double figure number of starts; got injured during his first run in the starting XI. Was his second start after returning from injury, featuring in all but one of the previous five.

It's not like they were playing kids anyway: most of these players have either been a regular for Burnley at some point in the last couple of seasons and/or have experience of regular international football. The only players who don't fit those two categories was Twine, who's been injured for a large chunk of the season, and Al-Dakhil, who was playing regularly for his club in the Belgian top flight prior to Burnley signing him in January. Huddersfield wouldn't be complaining about it if Burnley had won.

We made the same amount of changes in the 106 season for a game against Stoke at the tail end of the season (albeit Stoke weren't going to be in the play-offs/relegated and we played Leeds two days before) - and we brought on three youth players; we did win that game.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

Apologies if covered elsewhere but Burnley facing investigation following changes made against us, which Colin raised last week. Bit OTT calling it match fixing.

Bit rich coming from them when they rested a whole side before the playoffs (Stam season) which let to Birmingham surviving.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... ading.html

Saw that earlier. Turns out to be a bit of a non-story as the BBC quote regulations -

The regulations also state that "from the fourth Thursday in March, any team sheet for a league game should include at least 10 outfield players who featured on the team sheet for the league game before".

The team sheet includes substitutes and Burnley had 14 players on the team sheet who had also been in the matchday squad of 18 for the previous game.

BBC News - Burnley 'asked for observations' over team changes by EFL
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65364537

Shock as daily Mail post click bait ‘story’

[Winston Biscuit]

https://twitter.com/secondtierpod/status/1650457999851356161?t=4t65WSiUmzll7ag1U12TMg&s=19

[tidus_mi2]

https://twitter.com/secondtierpod/status/1650457999851356161?t=4t65WSiUmzll7ag1U12TMg&s=19

We rejected him for being too short but we were okay with 5'4 Liam Kelly? Seems like a nonsense story to me.

[Sutekh]

https://twitter.com/secondtierpod/status/1650457999851356161?t=4t65WSiUmzll7ag1U12TMg&s=19

We rejected him for being too short but we were okay with 5'4 Liam Kelly? Seems like a nonsense story to me.

Seriously?! Another highly decent player let go, file under Sam Bartram, Jimmy Hill and Peter Osgood amongst others!

[tidus_mi2]

https://twitter.com/secondtierpod/status/1650457999851356161?t=4t65WSiUmzll7ag1U12TMg&s=19

We rejected him for being too short but we were okay with 5'4 Liam Kelly? Seems like a nonsense story to me.

Seriously?! Another highly decent player let go, file under Sam Bartram, Jimmy Hill and Peter Osgood amongst others!

If the story is true I hope we got shot of whoever made the decision, absolute dinosaur mentality to think height matters.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

We had a similar instance with Charlie Austin a number of years ago didn't we? Everything looks different in hindsight ultimately and judging the physical characteristics of players is something that academies at professional clubs do take into account, that's probably why this isn't the only instance of this happening.

[Snowflake Royal]

I can see why a club would make that decision. But to tell a youngster he'll never make it in to any academy because he's too small? Get oxf*rd twat. Unless it's a case of motivational booing to inspire him to succeed. In which case, get oxf*rd twat.

[Sutekh]

https://twitter.com/secondtierpod/status/1650457999851356161?t=4t65WSiUmzll7ag1U12TMg&s=19

We rejected him for being too short but we were okay with 5'4 Liam Kelly? Seems like a nonsense story to me.

Seriously?! Another highly decent player let go, file under Sam Bartram, Jimmy Hill and Peter Osgood amongst others!

In a similar vein Reading, because of their lowly league position, lost out on Mick Martin. Apparently Charlie Hurley wanted to bring him over from Ireland in 1973 but obviously couldn’t compete once ManU enquired!

[windermereROYAL]

Burnley champs but yet again a huge helping hand from the officials, how on earth could the lino not see that handball at the end there?