Rival Watch

[Sutekh]

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?

They’ve been getting lucky all season, wonder why Reading have had naff all go for them this season? All the good fortune has been used by Bumley (and for what? They’ll more than likely be back next season).

[From Despair To Where?]

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?

I guess if you cant win it at home then at the home of your big local rivals is a pretty decent alternative.

[Sutekh]

Cardiff have apparently lost the services of their first choice keeper Ryan Allsop to an abductor muscle injury for the rest of the season.

[Sutekh]

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.

Rather unsurprisingly to everyone, the FL have decided that they won't be taking any action over this twaddle, perhaps they should dock points from Huddersfield for a "frivolous" appeal instead.

[From Despair To Where?]

12 points sounds reasonable

[Winston Biscuit]

Rotherham 1-1 Cardiff at HT

Cardiff missed a pen

[genome]

2-1 Cardiff

[windermereROYAL]

Cardiff 7 goals better than us now, very much safe, probably don`t need to do fukk all Sunday . but you would hope they will want to be certain

[mikey_1871]

Yeah, we needed someone to win that though. Draw would have meant we'd need 2 wins to bypass either.
A Rotherham win would have been preferable, but a Cardiff win is better than a draw

[TiagoIlori]

Don’t think it really matters who wins just as long as someone does.

[Schards#2]

Cardiff 7 goals better than us now, very much safe, probably don`t need to do fukk all Sunday . but you would hope they will want to be certain

Well, for us to overtake them, it requires us to win both and for them to lose both, so that's a four goal swing at a minimum. Given they are away to the runaway winners and we are home to the bottom club, its not impossible that could be overturned, and we've scored more than them so making up 7 goals would do it.

I've had a speculative punt on them to go down at 50/1

[Schards#2]

Yeah, we needed someone to win that though. Draw would have meant we'd need 2 wins to bypass either.
A Rotherham win would have been preferable, but a Cardiff win is better than a draw

The draw would have been better. Would have meant that, if we win both games, we'd stay up unless Cardiff won at Burnley.

Now Cardiff can probably afford to lose to Huddersfield

[TiagoIlori]

Cardiff being up for it would’ve likely meant a win for them which means both Rotherham and Cardiff would be all but safe. Think Cardiff would play for the point if the GD is as close as made out to be as a draw does nothing for Huddersfield.

[Sutekh]

Basically now if Reading lose on Saturday, then Reading will be relegated on Monday if Huddersfield win and Rotherham get a point or more,

IF Reading beat Wigan then Reading will (at least temporarily) move out of the relegation places to go equal with Rotherham but behind them on GD (Reading would need to win by 7-0 to get above the Millers). Rotherham don’t play until Monday when Middlesbrough visit them to give them their regards.

It may well be Rotherham who Reading now have the best chance to catch, but that may come down to hoping Wigan are up for turning them over on the final day while Reading get something at Huddersfield, for the first time in a couple of seasons.

[Stranded]

The result doesn't really change much - if we win both games we *should* stay up unless literally every single result goes against us.

Cardiff and nearly home and hosed but they are not quite there and will want to get at least a point from Huddersfield to be safe. The following scores are not beyond comprehension:

Cardiff 0 Huddersfield 2
Burnley 2 Cardiff 0

Reading 3 Wigan 1
Huddersfield 0 Reading 1

We would then be tied with Cardiff on 49pts and -17 GD - meaning we would finish above them on goals scored. If Huddersfield have beat Sheffield Utd as well, then Cardiff could still drop.

Rotherham will be looking over their shoulder again now and if we win on Saturday, they may get the "oh no not again" jitters ahead of the Boro game.

It was a decent result.

[windermereROYAL]

I would think that boro will field a weakened side on Monday ahead of the play-offs
As for us, we really need to try and close that GD between us and Cardiff because they go to Burnley on the last day, hoping we can scare them enough to put in a shift against Huddersfield on Sunday.
If we were to win say 2-0 ( ) and they lose 1-0 then then GD will be down to 4 goals, could be turned over on the final day.

[LUX]

Cardiff 7 goals better than us now, very much safe, probably don`t need to do fukk all Sunday . but you would hope they will want to be certain

Well, for us to overtake them, it requires us to win both and for them to lose both, so that's a four goal swing at a minimum. Given they are away to the runaway winners and we are home to the bottom club, its not impossible that could be overturned, and we've scored more than them so making up 7 goals would do it.

I've had a speculative punt on them to go down at 50/1

lolz, fairplay, really really hope you are right.

[Snowflake Royal]

Burnley have nothing left to play for. They're up, they're Champions and they can't break the record. They've already drawn and lost to two of the worst form teams in the division in recent games.

Can't rely on them for anything.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Cardiff still need a point to be absolutely sure and if they can get that against Huddersfield this weekend, that would be massive for us. Other than that, not bothered about them because they won't go down now anyway.

The two teams we need to look to catch are Huddersfield and Rotherham, the others won't go down now I don't think. Although realistically, it's coming down to a winner takes all between us and Huddersfield a week on Monday.

[Stranded]

Burnley have nothing left to play for. They're up, they're Champions and they can't break the record. They've already drawn and lost to two of the worst form teams in the division in recent games.

Can't rely on them for anything.

Agreed - they will still be scratching their heads as to how they lost to QPR though - if they do win at Bristol this weekend then they have the chance to break 100 points in their last game, which may well be a driver.

Think Cardiff will get something v Huddersfield any way so likely a moot point.