The League Cup

Villa beat em both en route to the final last season, and Villa are West Midlands SHIT!

It ain’t over til Fat Sam Allardyce’s Wife sings

We beat them the last two times we played. They don’t worry me at all.

If we get the Liverpool under 18s side like Villa did then all good, not sure that’ll happen though.

It’s true Klopp doesn’t care much for domestic cups though.

The game would be in 2 weeks. Round 3 is next week. Round 4 the week after (a few days after we play them in the league). That’s a lot of fixture congestion early on, so I doubt anyone will be playing a strong XI.

hopefully arteta doesnt care for this one much either

They were then tested and so many tested positive the game was called off and Spurs awarded the win.

Dodgy testing kit and testers here.

Pleased with the draw and looking forward to the game…best to draw a bigger team - if we lose we can focus on other games and if we win we knock a potential winner out. Be interesting to see how many teams throw the games though - lots of speculation that a lot of teams are worried about Covid-19 and the potential for players to catch the virus when playing against lower league opposition.

How annoying. Was looking forward to them having 2 games in 3 days!

Does this mean Orient can’t play now at the weekend.
Surely this opening up a can of worms here with their previous opponents.
Be interesting if any measures get called in on lower league sides all the way down to grass routes today by the government.
Seems a very loose end in the mix. Don’t know the bloody answer here.

It’s a tough one. How do the rules work? The further down the pyramid you go, the less likely they are to be able to afford multiple tests a week.

The National League look like they’re going to opt out of playing this season unless they can have fans, as it’s just not worth their time. It costs them too much to put a game on when they don’t get gate receipts.

And then you add in the testing aspect, and the whole thing is a shambles. I hope we don’t lose too many teams because of this.

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Testing is key. Really think national Leagues could of had crowds by now on there numbers. Probably league 2 as well.
Know a letter gone in from all sporting organisations for support from the government. Not sure how we avoid casualties here though. We are in the new phase of this thing now. It’s not going too be easy. Throw in poorly run clubs and poor leadership with a lot of sports. It’s bloody unpleasant viewing this.

Southend look in big trouble. They’re Colchester’s big rivals, but I draw no joy from it what so ever.

I actually read a letter from the Colchester chairman earlier about how the fan pass money works from the iFollow streaming site. He was basically saying it’s only really beneficial for the popular and bigger clubs. You need a massive fan base to make money, especially in away games.

An extract:

So based on twenty three away games, Bolton look set to receive about £345,000 from the streaming of their away games this season whilst we can look forward to approximately £0.00.

So yeah, league 2 teams like Colchester definitely need fans to actually attend games. They’ve released a few big name players already, but the chairman is decent, so I have faith they’ll get through this. But it’ll be hard. And like you say, there will be some casualties.

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:pensive:
When I moved ten minutes away from their ground I intended to start following Southend properly, disappointed to say I only made it to one game. Had I known this virus was round the corner I’d have made more of the opportunities I had.

Been saying to myself that as soon as I can I’ll make sure I get down to Roots Hall to help the club get back on its feet, but I’m not sure that looks like something that’ll be possible any time soon. Might need to look into this iFollow thing.

I was thinking about buying a shirt to put some money in, but thinking about it, they probably make fuck all on a shirt sale when all is said and done. Need to look into what the best thing to do would be to support the club financially.

Anyone more au fait with lower league football, your opinions would defs be welcome.

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Looking at that the play off game must have had so much more pressure on them than normal.
Can only imagine the body blow the chairman felt when they lost.
A bit more exposure by the media and on Twitter by high profile ex players wouldn’t go a miss right now.

Just heard the reintroduction of fans has been abandoned. :face_with_head_bandage:

It’s a joke. How is the pub less of a risk than an outdoor football stadium where you can easily socially distance?

Using Colchester as an example (again) their stadium capacity is over 10,000. Their average home attendance is 3,000. Even if all of them were allowed back in, they could probably socially distance alright, given that many will be in family bubbles. But even just allowing 1,000 of those in would be a massive help.

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It’s ridiculous as a four sided stadium can easily accommodate them numbers.
It’s essential and no other option will work for these clubs in football and other sports which don’t receive television income.
Plus it’s outdoors as well. Fa cup games this week have been banned from a crowd. Some instances we are talking up too about a 150 people.

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I know it’s not like this everywhere, but when I went to Southend I basically had to make an effort to not socially distance haha. We sat behind the goal in the lower tier in the first half, and on a whim moved to the upper tier along the side of the pitch in the second half.

Aside from the half time scrum for a beer, I’d actually feel rather safe at a Southend match at the moment.

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Actually think watching a prem match in the pub is worse than going a lower league game. Late winner for Arsenal on Saturday in a NL pub doesnt take much imagination on social distancing going west.

So Spurs didn’t get awarded the win ?

Newport County in the rd of 16