SO CITY will take on Blackpool next week minus two international players.

Reece Burke is also missing as he’s in Germany with England under-20s. But according to Football League rules, he doesn’t count.

He’s only a youth loan, you see; not a fully-fledged one that needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to deciding whether games can be postponed.

So Burke is not bracketed with James Meredith and Lee Evans as a genuine absentee.

Rules is rules and the league’s state that youth loans do not apply.

In the same way, Coventry will be missing their leading scorer Adam Armstrong. But being on a youth loan from Newcastle, he doesn’t come into the equation either.

Had Burke or Armstrong been with their parent clubs in the same scenario, they would have counted even if neither had featured more than with the occasional run from the bench. It’s a ludicrous system.

I’ve been told that Coventry’s trip to Fleetwood next Saturday could see six players missing. But the show will go on because the bulk of those are teenage youth loans.

The relevant section in the league rule book, which I have seen, spells it out clearly and lumps youth loans with short-term emergencies.

You can understand it with one-month “blink and they’re gone” arrivals; it stops the chance of clubs manipulating the situation. But with Burke, a City ever-present since he pitched up at Valley Parade, and Armstrong is it a completely different scenario.

Surely there is a case for reviewing each instance on its individual merits, as currently happens with disciplinary appeals.

After all, there are only likely to be a small handful of League One and Two games affected.

Lower-level clubs are rightly proud to see their players recognised internationally. It cannot be right that they suffer as well.