Tis true. Saints have confirmed the line up on Twitter. Makinson dropped.

If I was Tommy, I'd be feeling a bit miffed.

I think it's a bad call that Tommy isn't playing, unless he's resting on a knock.

Turner is at 6, O'Brien at 7, Meli with Jones and Gardner with Percival. Hohaia at 9 with Robes on the bench (at least that bit is being done properly).

Makinson was in the 19, so he clearly isn't injured.

How do you know that he was named in the squad but was 50/50 fitness wise and hasn't quite proved full fitness?

Because I know. But thank you for your contribution anyway.

How do you know? Or do you just like making things up to support your boring, ongoing, petty, childish, tedious grudge against Nathan Brown and Eamonn McManus?

Ps. Simmons and Gaskell say hi. They miss you too.

Andre Savelio will warm up with the lads tonight.

Yeah, Saints mentioned that on Twitter. Good experience for him.

Warming up with the first team in front of an empty terrace? Could he not do that in training?

Yeah , I used to love warming up before a game. It provided me with many many insights on how to improve my performance on the field.

Good grief, we are really scraping the barrel for reasons for criticism here.

Travelling with and being in and around the first team squad on a matchday will be a good experience for him.

You are very childish.

Did you watch the Sky coverage of the match? If you did, you will have heard confirmation from Eddie Hemmings that he confirmed with Brown prior to the game that neither Makinson nor Howarth was injured.

Hardly criticism but to be honest you learn nothing from warming up on a matchday. I've got plenty I could criticise Brown , this is merely pointing out something is daft. I would hope a prospect like Savelio would be getting a few days a week training with the first team

This isn't true at all. There's a completely different atmosphere in pre match than there is training, especially when there's a crowd watching you warm up.

If Savelio gets called up he now knows the routine on gameday and what is expected of him.

You do know we were playing Huddersfield dont you?

Well, sort of a crowd.

It's funny isn't it, that if there was a team at saints playing as Hudds are at the moment, we would have a full house every week.

I assume you are being sarcastic?

Well, I think I understood what was being said i.e. if we were as good as hudds are at present, would we fill our ground?
Who knows, we haven't been as good as hudds are now since we moved to the new ground?

Well, we didn't fill Knowsley Road when we were winning everything there was on offer so I can't see us filling Langtree Park if we played like Hudds tbh. (That we didn't fill KR when winning everything on offer was why I thought he was being sarcastic)

Agreed, but we would certainly be getting more than 5,203 against a "big name" club.
In fact when did we last have a crowd as low as that?

I would imagine in a Challenge Cup game? Not sure how we do in play offs, attendance wise. Other than that, probably the 1980s!

To go back to the Savelio comments.

I think it was good man management to introduce him to the first team.

He wont be familiar with the first team players, nor they of he. Not to mention the atmosphere, banter etc.

Essentially it would have been like your first day of work , with the added tension of being in the same room as players you grew up idolising from the TV couch or terrace.
That can make a kid very nervous, shy and affect their performance.

Far better to introduce him so he becomes one of the gang and doesn't feel out of place. That way he should perform in a more relaxed state when on the pitch, when the time comes for him to make his debut. I suspect this may be against Salford.