Everton were due to send their U21 side to play Saints at AFC Totton in the Premier League Cup on Saturday, but they have pulled out citing being unable to put out a side, but is that really the case ?
Everton contacted Saints on Tuesday Morning to inform them that they would be unable to fulfil the fixture at the Snows Stadium on Saturday due to a lack of players.
That seemed strange especially as Saints official statement included the words that the fixture set for Saturday 10 December would have to be rearranged after advice from the Premier League.
That suggested that Saints were not happy with the late cancellation.
The plot thickens though, Everton can't put out a team on Saturday at U21 level, but they managed to last night , only hours after claiming they didn't have enough players for Saturday, they blew away Colchester United's U21 side 7-2, they were not short of players for this game.
The Everton fan website Goodison News, had this to say.
"Strange
Unless Frank Lampard is planning to take so many youngsters with him into the first team then it is difficult to see why there is all of a sudden a lack of players in the academy.
With one point from three matches, it isn’t looking like Tait’s team will be advancing to the knockout stage of the competition so why not promote some of the Under-18s and give them a really good test against a top youth side?
The Under-18s don’t have a fixture until 17 December when they take on Leeds United so there can be no excuses of fixture pile-up from the Merseyside club.
The likes of Tom Cannon and Stan Mills could do with every minute of football they can get given the form they have shown this season so this news won’t be helping them.
Hopefully, a rescheduled date can be found quickly and this palaver can be forgotten about because it does not show Everton in the best light, in truth."
So even Everton fans are perplexed that a club of the size of Everton can't put out a side at what is effectively reserve team level, if they can put out a side on Tuesday, why can't they four days later.
It is not like Saints would have been putting out a plethora of first team players, on Saturday the entire first team squad plus several members of the U21 side would have still been in Spain, the Saints side would actually have been weaker than it would be normally.
Goodison News state that the Everton U18 side does not have a game this weekend and indeed not until a week later, so they would have had plenty of players who could have stepped up from the U18 side.
It is laughable that a club the size of Everton cannot raise a side from what would be around 40-50 players in their academy set up.
If they had waited till after the game against Colchester last night, they could have at least claimed they had injury issues etc, but they were brazen, the message was we will do what we want and we can't be bothered with sending a team 240 miles on Saturday.
Given their position in the competition, it is likely they will take the fine and Saints will be awarded the points and Everton will not give a toss, they would rather pay out money than have the inconvenience.
The only reason I can think of as to why they would not want to come other than the one that shows them in a very bad light,is that Everton did not wish their U21 players and coaching staff to miss the England V France World Cup quarter final on Saturday night, the game at Totton was due to kick off as 12.30 on Saturday lunchtime and end at around 2.20pm, by the time they had changed and got on their coach it would be 3pm at the earliest.
That would not be enough time for them to get back to Merseyside and watch the match on TV, although with todays technology I am sure they could have all watched it on their I Pads.