I imagine he will be no nearer than the bench for a few weeks at least.

You're right, although only by about 18 inches and it hasn't been updated on Wikipedia.

He should be great at West Brom then, the highest ground in the league.

I know that these games are outside the normal schedule and I heard Steve Waggott say at the November Fans Forum meeting that Ben will be going - this is the minute: - 7. Ben Brereton Diaz - Chile JW asked whether Ben Brereton Diaz would be travelling to play Chile’s next two World Cup qualifying games on 28th January and 1st February even though these were outside the usual International breaks. SW replied that, if fit, he would as the club would be sanctioned if they didn’t allow him to go. He would as a result miss one or maybe two league games in the New Year. It's frustrating for Rovers as the Premier League are taking a week off to accommodate them but the Championship are not. And then on top of that Sky TV have moved our game on 22/1/22 to Monday 24/1/22 when Ben should already have set off for Chile.

Even more so given the game is on Sky.

As I understand it we don't have a choice unless the club wants to get sanctioned* or that we can somehow do a deal with Chile. * I have no idea what the sanction would be.

I'm getting exactly the same message on the Cardiff site.

Oh no, the secret’s out. Tom and I did a deal in Pune with Balaji 10 years ago.

It looks like the restrictions in Wales will be lifted by the end of the month in time for the Swansea game.

The Rich Sharpe article certainly seemed to suggest that it would be a loan and it was't happening yet as Spurs were looking to tie him down to a longer contract first.

7 live TV games in 38 days!

There's plenty of time for the rules to be relaxed for you to get to the Swansea game.

No. The 5th Round is the first weekend in February when we are playing Swansea, who are also out of the Cup. It is usually in January - don't know why it's later this year.

In truth it's just that he's a bit off the pace having had a break - it shouldn't be too long.

I've been told that he is not fully match fit yet because of the German winter break.

I hope they do Jim. If they win 6 in a row they will still be 6 points behind where we are now. And their next three games are against Boro, Huddersfield and QPR.

Clearly they’re not always on song though. They had 4 draws and a defeat from their last 5 games before tonight.

Well the Scots are bringing fans back from next Monday, so i would think there is every chance of fans being back for this. Mind you, you have to be pretty committed to go to a 17.30 kick-off in Swansea

Bloody typical. My wife and daughter-in-law have a course on 12/2 in Cradley Heath, which was perfect for my son and I going to the Hawthorns just down the road......... All those Sky games is probably the kiss of death to our form as well.

Of course it's not literal but it's a useful tool to measure where you are. We are currently in a slightly false position because we have played three more home games than away games and there are a couple of teams behind us with games in hand. 4 of our next 5 games are away so we need to get a couple of wins in there at least - they are all winnable if we can keep up our league form.

Generally winning at home and drawing away will get you in the top two most seasons. We're a bit behind that plan right now as we have played more home games. Achieving it in the rest of the season will give us 85 points. That has been enough to comfortably make the play-offs in the last 20 years but only automatic promotion in 2 seasons.

There has been some chatter that a loan would be a good idea but I haven't seen any concrete plans.

An interesting stat from Cardiff's cup tie with North End. There were 42 fouls in the game, 27 of them by Cardiff. That might indicate the type of game we will have.

If he has it has been very quick as he scored for the under 23s on Sunday.

And another 4 deemed worthy of an experience on the bench on Saturday - Magloire (maybe not!), Garrett, Phillips and Adam Wharton.