Saints won the Football League Trophy under it's former sponsors name back in 2010, a day that all Saints fans enjoyed and saw as the confirmation that the club was back on its feet, but could the club be lifting the trophy again ?

As has been well documented the Football league Trophy is about to be boosted by the inclusion of the sixteen clubs with Category One status into the coming season's competition.

This is not without it's controversy with many Football League clubs concerned that this is the first step into either allowing Premier League B teams to compete at League level or football League clubs being annexed as official feeder clubs.

Both the Premier League and Football league deny this is the case and emphasise that this is merely a move to rejuvenate the competition, whilst giving the academies of major clubs a chance to give their players proper competition.

Now it s believed that the 16 clubs who will enter have been confirmed although not officially announced.

The wisper is that not all the initial invited clubs have accepted and that clubs like Newcastle who have category one academies but who are no longer in the Premier League have been invited to make up the shortfall.

Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea have been rumoured to have declined, but just who has accepted has not yet been revealed.

So have Saints accepted the invitation and will they possibly be drawn with local rivals Portsmouth in the competition ?

It will be interesting to see just how seriously the Academy clubs take the competition and indeed their fans, Saints famously took around 50,000 fans to Wembley when they won the trophy in 2010 beating Carlisle, but if they were to reach the final with their B team would Saints fans be as excited about a trip to Wembley as they were six years ago.

Certainly if the final was against Portsmouth it would be attractive, however if the tournament is regionalised as it has been in the past meaning that the final is contested by a Southern team against a Northern counterpart that is unlikely to happen.

I'm in favour of the proposal, in a time when many League One & Two clubs are struggling for cash, surely a situation where they can bring more cash in by meeting a so called big club's academy side has to be good.

Certainly Bury for example would get a far bigger gate if they were drawn against Manchester United's academy that they would if for instance they were to play Accrington Stanley.

There are of course issues that need to be clarified, but as it stands I would be delighted to see Saints enter the competition again, albeit our academy side.

Photo: Action Images

highfield49 added 09:15 - Jul 22 Having just entered the new Premier League 2 I can't see a good reason to be part of the Football League Trophy. PL2 looks to be the way forward with some games, against the "big" clubs at St Mary's and others at the training ground.
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