The9

Btw, the Newport fans weren't even boycotting last night and managed a far more impressive turnout of 386 fans.

Meanwhile Saints U21s got through to the next round without kicking a ball, as the bottom two teams in the group drew with each other and even the bonus point for a penalty win didn't catch either of them up. It'll be a fun night tomorrow as the Saints U21s and the team on top of the group kick the ball sideways for an hour and a half in a near-empty stadium, that's for sure. I do hope missing this one doesn't impact on my chances of a Round of 32 Europa League ticket...

Anyway, as a result of the match being completely pointless rather than just almost completely pointless, I have decided not to go. Saving my money for Prague. Or the Round of 32, Christ, could be paying for that in December too.

Just said the same. Clearly the EFL are not employing the right ELFs.

Though I am a little confused by the EFL website as surely Colchester should have 2 points for their pen win and not 1 for "the draw"? Either way we're through.

Yes, we're through: http://www.efl.com/checkatrade-trophy/checkatrade-trophy-tables/ Southern Group E Pos Team P W D L GD Pts 1 Crawley 2 2 0 0 3 6 2 Saints U21 2 1 1 0 1 4 3 Charlton 3 0 2 1 -2 3 4 Colchester 3 0 1 2 -2 1 Read more at http://www.efl.com/checkatrade-trophy/checkatrade-trophy-tables/index.aspx#PPViObZxG5KWQAVS.99 Round of 32. The eight winners and eight runners up of the north and south group stages qualify for the round of 32. All other Clubs are eliminated from the Competition. The round of 32 pairings are determined by means of a draw whereby the winner of a group will be drawn at home and will play a runner up of a group from the same region (but not from the same group). Subject to the requirement above, the League shall determine the format of, and conduct, the draw to determine the round of 32 and the allocation as Home Club and Away Club. Matches will be of ninety minutes duration, with no extra time. If the scores are level then the Match will be determined by the taking of kicks from the penalty mark (in accordance with the procedure laid down in the IFAB Laws of the Game). Read more at http://www.efl.com/global/trophyrules.aspx#Vxc4Avf6cAQ9tBvY.99

2 points for them then.

They were already bottom of the group, so I'm fairly sure they won't go through (just like Newport won't having beaten AFC Wimbledon tonight).

Funny that, all of them were 26 or under except Lambert (and look how that turned out), and I'm not sure where you get the idea that the other four have "attracted interest" from but 31 year old Davis hasn't, when Champions League Celtic were rumoured to be signing him in the summer: http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2016/08/08/premier-league-midfielder-responds-to-celtic-transfer-rumours-sh/

I love them all, if it wasn't for these effwits Saints would never be as successful as they by just being well-run and organised and planning ahead, and basically doing the opposite of all the things that lot expect.

I see. As opposed to closing the corners of the ground when we were heading for Admin in the Championship (and still got crowds bigger than they were getting in the Premier League), and the widespread practice of closing entire stands for early stages of poxy cup games (like the JPT, topically enough) which loads of teams do.

They're being bought by Rotherham United?

They lost 3-2 to Wolfsburg and got stuffed 3-0 by the mighty Braga, a town slightly larger than Eastleigh. And yes, they beat Heerenveen at home. Amusingly they also scraped past Guimaraes over two legs to qualify for the group stage to begin with, which meant that in two of their three aways they went to two places under 20 miles apart.

Funnily enough I've seen all of that before, apart from the bits about Southampton men being used to break strikes. The original versions referred to only the Portsmouth blacklegs strikebreaking in Southampton. It's literally a re-write by a Skate to muddy the waters with a few words changed to re-apportion blame and imply some truth to the SCUM story. Ironically the best online resource for debunking this Portsmyth is a Skate fan site. Short answer: Anyone can edit Wikipedia.

Except we didn't "struggle to break them down", we had 7 shots on target, one blocked from 6 yards out, one cleared off the line and one bounce off a striker's face over the bar from a yard out. We broke them down very well, their keeper played well too.

Though when you think about it, if the kids won the Trophy the senior team were winning 6 years ago it is another measure of the club's progress. Not that I particularly care about this half-baked shambles of an attempt at a competition, but I'd still rather we were in it than not. I've been to more pointless matches that cost more too...

I just had a look at the latest Premiership table. We're not even in it, and bloody Portsmouth came 9th. Bolton were 7th and Reading 8th though, so a bit messed up all round. Still can't believe West Ham got away with the third party ownership thing with Tevez and Mascherano winning their last 4 games on the bounce, Sheffield United were robbed.

"A big problem" or "a fixture list containing away matches against four of last years top 5 and the 7th place side already". This site has a "schedule checker" which lists the next 9 games, we have two "red" difficulty and four amber, three greens. Whilst Liverpool have one red and Leicester have NO red games at all (!), West Ham's next 4 games are ALL red. Nine teams have more red games than us and six the same number. So only 5 teams have an easier next 9 matches coming up than us.

It's ok, we won't have Wanyama not bothering to track back this time or Caulker doing the best job I've ever seen of creating space for attackers in the box.

That's what he means, it would be embarrassing if the U23s (or U21s if you like) won the competition because it makes the 2010 win look rubbish. TBH I think it's fairly widely expected that no-one's kids are getting far in this, they won't have the consistency and as soon as there's any kind of serious chance of Wembley the League One resources will be diverted towards the competition. Only Norwich, Reading, Leicester, Sunderland and Saints' kids are looking like they might get through from the 16 groups - Everton's are top of the group but are only 2 goals from being bottom of it!

We'll probably stuff them. No idea why.

It's going to take about two more months for Sunderland and Swansea to get to the number of points we've got at the rate they're going. That just leaves the one slot for Hull to fight over with some other utter guff. Probably worth noting we're in the midst of an injury crisis as well, still top half.

Truth be told, that's precisely why I'm not concerned. I also note you haven't provided a comparator for this season, probably because it doesn't support your argument. You forgot to mention us not beating Sunderland at home in the League. And Man City and Arsenal not beating Middlesbrough at home. Bournemouth losing to Sunderland, Man U not beating Burnley at home last week or Stoke before that. Burnley beating Liverpool, and Burnley and Bournemouth beating Everton. Man City drawing with Everton. And Arsenal losing at home to Liverpool, Palace losing home to West Brom and Hull beating Leicester. There are a lot of surprises in a Premier League season, you should probably get used to it.

There are nine teams between us and the relegation zone - even if we lost the next 5 we'd probably still be ahead of some of them.

Seven efforts on target, plus hitting the bar and one rebound off Rodriguez's face in the last seconds from a yard out which somehow went over the bar. That's more than enough to win most games.