Will we need a Sherpa to scale the peaks against Barrow? - Papa John's Trophy v Barrow 7:45pm

[brommers95]

That’s a bit tasty. Are they rubbish like the Leeds lot or basically very good and we are doomed? No idea meself..but someone on here is bound to know…

We should see them off fairly easily if we play even half-well (and Dixon doesn’t completely feck up).

In the group stage they beat Carlisle 2-1, Barrow 2-1 and then drew against Fleetwood 2-2. However all three of those sides played second string XIs.

In the previous round they came through on penalties against Wolves U21s after it finished 0-0 after 90 minutes. They’re 11th (out of 14 teams) in PL2 - they don’t appear to be anything special.

Thanks sounds promising. I think we should take this competition seriously. A trip to Wembley shouldn’t be sniffed at even if it’s a sub par tournament.

Also IF we make the play offs having been to Wembley already is a big advantage in my view ahead of a potential final.

Yeah definitely. There’s also good bank to be made in the competition which could really help next summer's transfer budget.

We’ve already earned £65,000 to date in it and there’s £190,000 still up for grabs in prize money

Round of 16 win £40,000
Quarter final win £50,000
Final win £100,000 (runners up £50,000)

Semi finals and final are also televised, with participating clubs receiving £20,000 in those games.

Sunderland supposedly made circa £1m for their run to the final in 2019. Most of that will have come from ticket sales for the final where they sold 39,000. We wouldn’t take many to a final, but you can imagine a run to the final still netting us around £500k.

We wouldn’t take many to a final? Not sure about that. I suspect 30K would go.

I think we’d struggle to muster 30,000 in all honesty. We just about took that many to the FA Cup semi-final against Stoke and that was a much bigger occasion.

Anyway, a few rounds to get through first before we can worry about ticket sales for the final.

[officer_dibble]

Wonder how long they will persist with Dixon in net if we are serious about this competition? He’s a guaranteed mistake every game.

[brommers95]

Wonder how long they will persist with Dixon in net if we are serious about this competition? He’s a guaranteed mistake every game.

There's some suspicion that City have prohibited Trafford from playing in the competition, but I haven't got a scooby

Evatt has stuck with Dixon after all the other mistakes in this competition so no reason he'd drop him now. Which will probably be the reason we don't win it.

[Bruce Rioja]

Man U's children up next, I see.

[KeyserSoze]

Man U's children up next, I see.

Closer to that than you may think. A friend who watches the Man U u21s relatively frequently says that it may as well be an u-18s team (with the odd exception of Tom Huddlestone). Seems similar to when we had a youth setup but no real squad in the middle for them to break into.

[officer_dibble]

Wonder how long they will persist with Dixon in net if we are serious about this competition? He’s a guaranteed mistake every game.

There's some suspicion that City have prohibited Trafford from playing in the competition, but I haven't got a scooby

Evatt has stuck with Dixon after all the other mistakes in this competition so no reason he'd drop him now. Which will probably be the reason we don't win it.

Can’t see why they would limit his game time - maybe linked with him training there once a week but think that’s people putting two and two together and getting five.