Checkatrade Trophy:
 

Ahead of Group Matchday 1 I wrote ........

This competition was formerly known as the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, but is much changed, 16 Category 1 Academy sides have joined the 48 teams from League 1 and 2 and there is now a group stage to get through before knockout football arrives in the last 32. We have 16 four team groups, with teams facing each other once, top two progress to the knockout stage.

The JPT was always difficult in terms of who was "interested" and trying to find confirmed team news, but this is just a minefield!

It is further complicated this round as the bigger clubs, Chelsea for example, will be looking to get many players out on loan before the window closes, I understand that the Blues had 30 players out on loan at one stage last year and that they made £14m (!) in loan fees, with some players carrying a £1m fee and a guarantee required that they will appear in 75% of first team squads (if fit). At least one Championship team paid a one season loan fee in excess of £2m in 2015-16 and that is why some loan deals are being negotiated like permanent deals and taking an age to get over the line. Having said that, there will be a lot of deals, far more than usual, done today and tomorrow, with this year there being no separate loan window deadline.

We will definitely be involved in this tournament a little later in the campaign, but for now, there are simply too many imponderables.