On the plus side, of course, despite Huddersfield's shittery, Birmingham could well STILL drop.
Brentford V Blackburn Rovers
Bristol City V Birmingham
Forest V Ipswich
Forest and Blackburn both win their winnable matches, and Birmingham must win theirs. A draw would not do them.
20...
Barnsley were tipped by many to struggle this season, but have done brilliantly well to compete.
As such, and free from any end of season stress, they've more than 'earned the right' to reward half a dozen of their best performing U18s with first team debuts, at St.James' Park on Sunday, right?
Quite.
Huddersfield didn't need any points from their last two matches. Some might say it suited them not to accrue any. They'd 'earned the right' not to try to win any points. In fact they didn't really NEED to play the matches at all. They'd 'earned the right' to just not bother turning up...
Even those figures are rubbish.
Taking the first TWO, for example:
Coleman had made just two starts prior to Saturday (and one forced sub appearance).
The figure of 21 for Hudson, includes FIVE sub appearances, (in four of which he came on after the 85th minute)
Just out of interest, to analyse those stats a little, I checked the first one: 'Coleman 8'
Well, turns out that Coleman has actually featured three times in the league prior to Saturday, and NEVER when the first choice keeper (Ward) was actually available (came on once at half time as a sub...
Hahahaha. Did you think people would not actually click the links?
Those are wildly different sides, with the Birmingham one massively weaker.
Smith , Billing and Homes-Dennis are the ONLY players that started both.
Then its your reserve keeper over Ward, 49 year old Hudson and back-up...