Tombwfc

When people say season ending injury that usually means something severe. But our season ends in 15 days regardless of what happens. I don't think it'd be totally farfetched for him to have woken up sore on Sunday, had a scan and be out for three weeks. The club and Marc Iles are fully aware that this has been a big talking point all week and have deliberately avoided talking directly about Kenny. So either way they don't want people to know if he's fit or not. The only thing that makes me think it's more likely to be true, is that from what I remember the Simons/Erhahon injury started out as an online rumour, then they were both missing from the squad at Plymouth and SS confirmed afterwards that they'd been out all week and would be missing for the foreseeable. Equally he also said he stuck ACD on the bench against Stockport to give the fans a boost before kick off. So maybe you could say he's got form either way.

Has anyone said they should?

If the club wanted to they'd have cleared it up already whether he is or isn't injured, so there's obviously some games being played.

I'm not advocating losing the first leg as a strategy! Equally, we were three goals up with 45mins to play the last time we reached this stage against a toothless looking Barnsley and still ended up clinging on. And this team is a lot more volatile when it comes to scoring and conceding goals in bunches. Point is a lot of our games have taken extreme positions at times before being close in the end. I'd be surprised if this tie wasn't alive coming into the last 10mins next week regardless of what happens on Saturday.

There was a Championship playoff the other year (Coventry vs Boro I think) where they gave each other 2k and there were thousands of empty seats. Looked shit on TV for what is one of the EFL's most important fixtures. Looking it up, neither home side won and Coventry went through in the away leg despite being outnumbered 30k to 2k. So much for those marginal gains.

Generally speaking the injury leaks coming out of the club have been pretty accurate all season. And there's enough wiggle room in SS's comments to make me believe there's probably something in the Kenny rumours. Regardless, outside of 4-0 I don't think there's a scoreline where I'd consider the tie done after Saturday. If we were 3-1 down I'd really fancy us to go and get the first goal on Thursday, and probably the same vice versa.

Happy for you (or SJM) to show the correlation between our big away followings and good results. 700 extra tickets for both sides wouldn't have made a single bit of difference to the outcome of the tie. But regardless, talk about totally missing the point of football. Fans (like yourself!) getting tickets for the biggest games of the season > the club making £1300 > totally spurious and unprovable 'marginal gains'.

That's obviously shit luck and unfortunate. As I say I'd not be outraged if we had a points system, but I suspect it'll take some extraordinary event to make it happen. West Ham got a 6k allocation the other year when they reached the Conference Final, imagine that going fastest finger first. Not to beat a point from early in the thread to death... but we've sold 18k home tickets, Bradford have sold 17k (albeit they've got a lot more time) but have fans camping out to come here. The rush to give the minimum allocation possible in games like this only hurts fans who are among most desperate to be there.

Worth saying that we do have a loyalty scheme as such, it's the away season ticket. Our demand, even for a game like this, is relatively manageable. I'd guess most people who logged on at 10am today probably did get a ticket. As you would if you did the same for basically any league game. You'd have to have been extremely unlucky to have missed out today, the Barnsley away semi's, Accrington in the Papa John's etc. so it should even out with all things being equal. But I wouldn't be outraged if the club did eventually put a points system in place.

The ninth best player in League One has just been released by Wigan, if we are looking for defensive reinforcements.

Have to say I don't really get the appeal of sitting in with home fans. Maybe if it was a once in a lifetime game or if you were going with a mate who was a fan of the home team. Beyond that it seems worse than watching on TV in every aspect.

Fit or not he's also not done enough to suggest he's our best option anyway. Last three appearances... Wycombe (h) - Taken off after 64 minutes (score 0-2) Rotherham (a) - Taken off after 45 minutes (score 0-2) Port Vale (a) - Taken off after 61 minutes (score 0-1) We've kept three clean sheets with him in the side - Wimbledon, Northampton at home (shit result, hooked after an hour) and Mansfield away (vs ten men). Doesn't scream defensive solidity and can't do half of what RR does going forward.

If anything it should give you much more confidence in someone like Schumacher. Nobody has given him jobs based on his name or what he did as a player. To get the Plymouth job when he did (with next to zero experience as a number one and no affiliation with the club beyond being Lowe's assistant), he must have shown someone that he is a good coach.

By the same logic though, would the rest of our squad fail to crack a top 100 list if they were any good? On the wider list, next is Conway (58), then Dalby (97), Sheehan (119) and Christie (146). Although McAtee being rated as one of the worst players in the league (352 out of 389 eligible) might convince some there's validity to it. This is one area where I'd trust the eyes of people who watch us over whatever 'data' this is based on. Sometimes numbers do mean nothing at all. In this case you'd be better off picking names out of a hat.

To be fair if your data comes back with Wigan having more top 20 players than Cardiff, and George Johnston having a better season than Cozier-Duberry, then it's probably due a bit more than a pinch of salt.