Jerryatric owl

Apologies if already out and not claiming to be directly ITK but just heard from reliable source that Lewis Baker has upped and offed back to Chelsea. Apparently miffed at not being selected on Saturday. Another case of a young player believing their own hype?

Cool it. The lad's 17 tomorrow. Yes, he seems very talented but the last thing he needs is added pressure from fans.

A great performance and result to match! Lads drawn against Chelsea in next round - away!

I can definitely confirm that Franck Betra is in his first year at the Academy. My best belief is that he is not 17 until December. He is a full French Citizen, his home is in Paris. That being the case, I think his performance today deserves a lot of praise and holds out a lot of promise for the future.

Yes robster_owl, that's the article and well done for finding the online reference. All power to your elbow if you could take this up. Don't quite a few MP's have links with football clubs? Surely some of them ought to be supportive? David Blunkett for one. In fact, I'm going to email him now.

And what about this - reported by David Conn in today's Guardian- sorry for re-type but obviously deemed so unimportant by the media can't find an online reference. Says it all really! "The Premier League has been accused of heavy-handedness with Football League clubs in the tortuous negotiations about how much of its forthcoming TV billions it will share with the rest of football. The row broke out over the Football League's proposals to close the financial gap in the Championship. With the Premier League's 2013-16 TV deals expected to reap £5.5bn (!!!!), clubs relegated to the Championship will be paid substantially increased parachute payments to £59 million over four years(!!!!!!!!!!). This vastly exceeds the money paid to other Championship clubs competing with them, which is £195 million a year over 2012-2015, just 3.5% of the Premier League deal. Each Championship club receives £2m from that deal and three years ago the Premier League began to make a payment to the Football League in an attempt to narrow the gap slightly, so the clubs not receiving parachute payments receive £2m in "solidarity". Because parachute payments are due to go up by around 45% from the last deal, the Football League proposed two ways to reduce the financial gap. The first was that relegated Premier League clubs would not receive the £2m share of the Championship TV money, instead the amount would be redistributed to the other clubs. The second was a proposed salary cap, limiting spending on wages to £16m for relegated clubs in the first year, reducing to £10m in 2014-15 and £8m in 2015-16. Greg Clarke, the Football League chairman, had informed Scudamore (Premier League Chief Executive) of these proposals and asked for his views. Just before the meeting started, Scudamore emailed Clarke to say that if either proposal was implemented he would withdraw the current offer of "solidarity" money and review it - Scudamore was saying he would pull the money the Premier League pays to the Football League if the Championship clubs voted for the proposals." WTF!!!!! Needless to say " A majority voted in favour of a motion that they would have passed the two proposals had Scudamore not threatened to withdraw the offer. However, as they faced losing the "solidarity" money, they withdrew the proposals." This is outrageous, every fan of every Football League club should raise a stink about this but I know nothing will happen. I imagine most won't even get to know.

Roy came to our academy this season from Leicester City. He was unable to play for the academy until after Christmas though, as his international clearance (yes, it seems it applies even to academy players) took until then to come through. He is a regular part of the Slovenian U17/U18 set up. His father is Mladen Rudonja, a former Slovenian international, who played in various countries around Europe including a spell at Portsmouth. Mladen is revered in Slovenia as the scorer of an away goal vs. Romania that enabled Slovenia (only formed as a separate state in 1991 after the break-up of Yugoslavia) to progress to the 2002 World Cup Finals.

Not up with technology so unable to post link or whatever but just to mention that there is an excellent feature article on Nicky Weaver in today's Guardian Sport section. Talks about his injury history and where he finds himself today. Good read.

Neal M - Yes, maybe hard to imagine now but absolutely no segregation of supporters in 1960's. Of course, back then few fans travelled to away games except for really big matches. Before the Cantilever North Stand was built (see Kivo's photo), it was perfectly possible to move around inside the ground. So you could "change ends" and away fans in particular regularly did this. They would pitch up on The Kop pre-match, wait for the coin throw and then if their team was kicking towards Leppings Lane, move round behind that goal by walking round behind (or was it under?) the old North Stand. At half time they would simply walk back. And no trouble or aggravation at all. Those were the days! I think that team photo is somewhat earlier than 1964 - and not a bad team either! Can't remember much about Hill but I'd take a defence including Spingett, Smith, Megson and Mobley any day!!

These forecasts are very difficult to make because every team seems capable of getting a result on occasion - even Peterborough for heaven's sake! Here's hoping someone goes on an appalling run like we did in the autumn! Obviously it's crucial that we win our home games but as others have said, that's a pretty tall order so it looks like we'll need some help from elsewhere. Looking through the fixtures, the Watford v Crystal Palace game on March 30th could play a big part in our fate. Trying various scenarios, I think it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that as many as FIVE teams could go into the last game needing wins to ensure survival. Owls v Palace !! OMG!

Just been playing with the "Predictor" on BBC Sport website. Following tonight's results and news about Crystal Palace, then IF (big "if", I know) we beat Scunny tomorrow and win again on Saturday - with other reuslts going to form (well, mine anyway)... The Owls would be, I reckon - 14th - 7 points off the playoffs and 10 points above 3rd from bottom. Who'd have thought it after that run? And in the land of "What ifs"....... what if we'd beaten - as we should have just Barnsley and Preston at home......!!!!