Crystal Palace in the League Cup. It gets us out the house.
Carabao are the most pointless sponsors in football. Their cup, sadly, is the most pointless competition we play in. The fourth round is the most pointless stage; not much chance of a new ground and not close enough to the final to get excited.
Then there’s the opposition. Playing Crystal Palace would be bad enough; Crystal Palace reserves is even worse. They’ll bring a couple of dozen supporters and some of them will be that lot with the drums and flags. There’s no place for such things in polite society. What kind of players they’ll bring is more of a mystery. Clubs who are mid-table and likely to end the season in the same place don’t bother about round four of the Carabao Cup. Clubs in the bottom three are likely to pick a team of Academy hopefuls and programme sellers.
We used to see this sort of game as a way of saying the manager should give the kids a try. When they did the kids usually proved even more inept than the first team and we went out to such big hitters as Leyton Orient and Luton. Then we got a squad worthy of the name so Unai could make eleven changes and still put out a team good enough to play in the Premier League. Or he could pick a load of Academy hopefuls. The sort of team he does start with will show how seriously he wants to win a trophy, and it’s about time we did.
The tickets are cheaper than our last cup game, and the next one, What effect it’ll have on the crowd, we’ll have to see. Expect to see a load of social media comment about ‘proper’ supporters and if they can’t be arsed to turn up for this one they don’t deserve a ticket for Real Madrid.
The draw’s taking place some time after the match, probably from a submarine under the North Pole.