By Longsider
November 6 2003

Next weekend see another set of international fixtures that the Home Countries are involved in. The crucial games over the weekend involve Scotland and Wales who play Holland and Russia respectively. England are also in action against Denmark at Old Trafford with ticket sales already breaking the 50,000 mark and the FA are confident of a sell out.

So where does all this leave us? At the moment the game at Pride Park is on and we suspect it won't be called off. In order for a game to be called off there has to be a minimum of 3 players from one side called up for international duty before a side can request a postponment. Now that Burnley have sold both Gareth Taylor and Dimi Papadopoulous we shouldn't have any players called up although we believe Graham Branch is on standby for next weekend.

We believe Derby will have Candido Costa called up to the Portual Under 21's squad who face the French in a two legged encounter. The only other player who should get a call up will be the Derby keeper Lee Grant who made his debut for the club at the corresponding fixture last season. This means that they will still one player short in order for the game to be called off.

The last international weekend, back in October, saw just 3 games played in the 1st Division and Derby were one of the teams involved when they were held 2-2 at home to Wigan. At the moment the games at Bradford, Cardiff, Crystal Palace, Rotherham, Sheffield Utd, Sunderland and West Ham are all off.

Just 5 games have survived, at the moment, and it does make you wonder whether there is any point in having a fixture list(for our Division) on the same weekend as Internaionals.