would anyone think that Bakinson could be rested , appreciate he scored the winner yesterday, but has played a lot of minutes recently and has quickly developed into a vital player, could his youth be a factor also.

Why don't we just rest everyone and take the fine?

I just hope we don't do like we did against Cheltenham when we played four academy lads.It just made a mockery of the competition.

Percy plunkett wrote:I just hope we don't do like we did against Cheltenham when we played four academy lads.It just made a mockery of the competition.

The competition couldn't be anymore of a joke than it already is.

Rather we just didn't bother and put out a load of kids but we're hardly cash-rich so that's not an option. Bring in a couple from the bench to replace those that haven't had a break yet. Important game Saturday after all.

Mr Figo wrote:Pay on the gate presumably?

Depends if they decide to open a gate !!

County have never taken any serious interest in this competition and I can't see that changing this season. I think that Flynn will make as many changes as he can. In theory he could change the whole team if he had enough registered players because any player who has made 40 senior appearances for any EFL club, not just with County, counts as one of the four qualifying players. This means e.g. that Crofts could be one of the four even though he did not play against Oldham. Expect a number of youngsters to play I reckon.

Or maybe he will go for it for the money as we will need every penny going forward.

Loyalfoot wrote:Or maybe he will go for it for the money as we will need every penny going forward.

Having watched every match of a EFL Trophy winning run with Southampton in 2010 I can safely say that no-one shows the remotest of interest until you get to the area final. There's no "money" involved unless you can fill your ground, no big clubs to give a boost (other than U21 sides that no-one cares about), so the only interest comes from the chance of winning something.

Saints got under half of their usual home attendance in the 2nd Round, 65% of it in the area semi-final, almost sold out for the area Final second leg (which was a 50% increase on the usual attendance) and took 150% more fans to the Final than their ground holds (around 50,000 Saints fans at Wembley, a record for one team's fans which stood until Spurs played at home there last season).

So with the restructured tournament, County need to get out of the group and win another 3 games before any of the floating fans will give a monkey's. Tbh we're better off using it to give fringe players some fitness and younger players experience and seeing how it goes.

I would be interested to see which of County's players are qualifying players though. Ok, I'm on it.

SJG99 wrote:

Loyalfoot wrote:There's no "money" involved unless you can fill your ground

Except the prize money.

Minimum of four qualifying outfield players in their starting XI.
A qualifying outfield player will be one who meets any of the following requirements:

A club can play any eligible goalkeeper in the competition - so I'll ignore keepers altogether.

Any player who started the previous or following first-team fixture
Any player who is in the top 10 players at the club, who have made the most starting appearances in league and domestic cup competitions that season
Any player with 40 or more first-team appearances in their career
Any player on loan from a Premier League club or any EFL Category One Academy club.

Started the previous fixture (Oldham A)
Butler
Demetriou
Bennett
Franks
Pipe
Dolan
Bakinson
Sheehan
Amond
Matt

Starting the next fixture - well that's our get out of jail card if we mess up...

Top 10 league and cup starting appearances this season (but not already listed)
only adds Keanu Marsh-Brown (Cooper and Semenyo are =12th and on the list with 6 appearances)

40 or more career first team appearances:
Willmott
Hornby-Forbes (has 42 including 3 for County this season!!!)
Crofts
O'Brien

NB: (Charlie Cooper only has 25 for FGR plus the 6 for County and needs 9 more to become a qualifying player)

Any player on loan from a Premier League club or any EFL Category One Academy club:
The hardest part of the research was finding which 24 clubs have Category One status.
They are listed here under Premier League 2, Div 1 and 2: https://www.premierleague.com/tables?te ... =16&se=217

We don't have anyone on loan from Man U, Sunderland, Everton, Man City, Chelsea, Southampton, Liverpool, Spurs, Reading, Leicester, Middlesbrough, Norwich, Derby, Arsenal, Swansea, Villa, Blackburn, West Brom, West Ham, Stoke, Fulham, Newcastle, Brighton, or Wolves.
Neither Bristol City nor Cardiff are Category 1 academies, so that doesn't add any qualifying players.

To summarise:
1 Joe Day Q (GK)
2 David Pipe Q (Started last game, & 40 appearances)
3 Dan Butler Q (Started last game, Top 10, & 40 appearances)
5 Fraser Franks Q (Started last game, Top 10, & 40 appearances)
7 Robbie Willmott (40 appearances)
8 Matt Dolan Q (Started last game, Top 10 & 40 appearances)
9 Pádraig Amond Q (Started last game, Top 10 & 40 appearances)
10 Keanu Marsh-Brown Q (Top 10 & 40 appearances)
11 Jamille Matt Q (Started last game, Top 10 & 40 appearances)
14 Mark Harris
15 Tyreeq Bakinson Q (Started last game, Top 10)
16 Josh Sheehan Q (Started last game, Top 10 & 40 appearances)
17 Scot Bennett Q (Started last game, Top 10 & 40 appearances)
18 Jay Foulston
21 Tyler Hornby-Forbes Q (40 appearances)
22 Andrew Crofts Q (40 appearances)
23 Mike Flynn Q (40 appearances - and listed as a player on the official site!)
25 Mark O'Brien Q (40 appearances)
28 Mickey Demetriou Q (Started last game, Top 10, & 40 appearances)
30 Nick Townsend Q (GK)
33 Charlie Cooper (just outside Top 10, will qualify with 40 career appearances after 9 more County appearances)
38 Lewis Collins
42 Antoine Semenyo (just outside Top 10)
xx Cameron Pring

Ho hum.

Marky wrote:

SJG99 wrote:

Loyalfoot wrote:There's no "money" involved unless you can fill your ground

Except the prize money.

Which isn't that great even for a club County's size:
https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/spor ... at-1966365

Prize money
Each EFL Club to receive a participation fee of £20,000, in addition to the following competition fund
Group Stage: £10k for a win and £5k for a draw
Round Two: £20k for a win
Round Three: £40k for a win
Quarter Final: £50k for a win
Runner-up: £50k
Winner: £100k

No more than £250k even for winning it, and that's not exactly likely and would probably ruin any promotion hopes we might have.

So it's actually quite difficult for County NOT to field 4 qualifying players!

Also it's interesting to know that even if we did, we could pick some of them for the following match and "make" them eligible.

£10k should matter to us,it covers about half the wages this week or pay Flynn for a month with a bit left over.

Corpaboy wrote:

Mr Figo wrote:Pay on the gate presumably?

Depends if they decide to open a gate !!

Fair one.

Percy plunkett wrote:£10k should matter to us,it covers about half the wages this week or pay Flynn for a month with a bit left over.

This competition is a joke. I'd like to see us launch a new clown-themed strip specifically for these games and for our players to wear novelty boots and red noses.