The EFL Trophy

I know many of you will get to this point, perhaps agreeing with a few bits I’ve said, but I’m now maybe going to be very controversial. I like this competition. I don’t go to matches against Under 21 sides, and I’ve even missed matches between us and Football League sides, but in terms of value to the club, I think it has legs.

Firstly, the value. It is a good money-spinner, and going deep in this competition can earn you more money than a League Cup run. It’s also good for bringing players through. Elicha Ahui made his debut in it for us, Freddie Draper scored his first senior goal, and players coming back from injury can get minutes in a low-pressure environment. There are plenty of benefits to it, with a few drawbacks. Being classed as equals to an Under 21 side is something that sticks in the throats of many, and the power which those clubs hold is galling – arguably, part of the reason Dan N’Lundulu failed at Lincoln because we were forced to play Manchester United U21s on a date we didn’t want to, and he was rushed back for that date and got injured. Ok, there’s more to it, but that’s not far from being factual.

How can we make the tournament more palatable? We can’t lose the Under 21 teams for a start. Much of the funding, one of the key drivers behind the competition, comes from their involvement. They want their games against senior opposition and in many ways, it isn’t that bad. Some top players get their first minutes in the Trophy, and some players we have signed have got their first taste of action in it, such as Brooke Norton-Cuffy and Max Sanders. I don’t fear B-teams entering into our Football League structure, maybe that’s naive, maybe not. I don’t want to pay to watch us play in glorified training matches against so-called elite kids, but I understand the competition’s place in the football structure. I’ll tell you what – it earns us much more now than it ever did as the Autoglass Windscreen’s Sheild or the Freight Rover Trophy.

I think we should go completely outside of the box with this, and to do so I’m going to start talking about US sports. The NFL is an example of my thinking – each team in the NFL is in a division of four teams, but their record is made up by playing teams outside of that division as well. For instance, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished top of the four-team, NFC South this season, with the Panthers, Saints and Falcons all below them. The Bucs played 17 games and won just eight, but the others only won seven, meaning collectively only 21 matches were won across the whole division, whilst 39 were lost. The Bucs won the conference and made the playoffs, whilst the New York Giants, with nine wins and a tie in NFC East, did not. In fact, the Giants finished third! Why? Because whilst they’re grouped into a division and ranked against the other three teams, they play teams outside of that division to get their record. It sounds complicated, but it wouldn’t have to be.

Now, hold that thought – what if we applied a similar process to the EFL Trophy. The competition needs the Under 21 teams, I’ve established that, and their involvement depends on them playing at least three matches in the group stages. What if they were guaranteed four, or even five? Would that keep them involved, keep the money coming in? If so, we could then split the Under 21s and senior teams into the latter stages, so there was no prospect of an all Under 21 final, and the lure of Wembley was still strong.

Here’s my idea. You split the senior Football League teams into however many groups you need, four or five perhaps – doesn’t have to be regionalised. Let’s say we get Harrogate, Plymouth, Stevenage and Mansfield. You then split the Under 21 teams into groups as well, again, they’re not necessarily going to play each other. Then, in pre-season, you play two or three group matches in place of friendlies, Football League against Under 21. That would mean by the time we got into August, there would be scope for two or three more matches at the group stage without major disruption. You’d play a mix, say two or three Under 21 sides and then a couple of other, randomly drawn league teams. However, your group wouldn’t necessarily be the teams you play and it would only be senior teams – we might not play any of Harrogate, Plymouth, Stevenage and Mansfield, but our records would be comparable and whoever finishes in the top two progresses.

At the end of that process, you’d not only have qualifiers from senior teams, and the Under 21s league., and those Under 21 teams will have played five or six matches – only Man Utd, Chelsea and Eeverotn kids played that many this season. You’d then move to a knockout where the two classes split, Under 21s only and senior teams only. It would guarantee progress to Wembley for two senior teams, but also create a second Under 21 knockout stage which would ensure a youth team also won something. Surely, that would be of more benefit? As long as clubs still got the prize money, and perhaps Under 21 teams did not, so for each Under 21 game you just got the £5,000 prize money, or whatever.

You could then even have a much-heralded finals weekend, where the Under 21 final was played on a Saturday and the senior on a Sunday, with discounted tickets for those wishing to attend both. I guess you could be flexible with the entry as well, depending on numbers you could tweak it to include more senior teams (perhaps one per group from the top teams in the National League) or more Under 21 teams, as long as they paid their dues and it trickled down to the senior clubs.

Could that save the EFL Trophy? `it would certainly make it more interesting.

Let me know what you think of my ideas in the comments, and keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks for similar articles on discipline, the transfer system and VAR.