It came as little surprise to me that Cardiff sent a squad of youngsters to Exeter last night for a 'Cardiff City XI' friendly at St James Park.
The game came just 24 hours after the first team squad returned from Germany and was never listed as a first team match, just a Cardiff City XI.
Still the total absense of any senior players (not even the out of favour Macheda or Le Fondre) upset the board at Exeter who expected something more from the visitors.
In fact Cardiff City found themselves issuing an apology over the lack of any senior players in the squad.
It read: "I'm afraid it will be our U21 side who travel tonight for which Cardiff City can only apologise as we made the arrangements for it to be a first team fixture in good faith.
"We have a number of first team players like Adam Le Fondre and Federico Macheda who we had expected to play in the game but who have been excluded from the squad."
The kids were given a beating by an Exeter side that had won all six of their previous pre season games.
Exeter boss Paul Tisdale tried to keep cool when speaking after the game about injuries to a couple of his key players after some tough City challenges. On the touchline during the game Tisdale and his director of football Steve Perryman confronted the officials and the Cardiff bench in an attempt to get the players to calm down.
"It was a competitive game and I thought we were very, very efficient and sharp," Tisdale said. "We were very purposeful and I just think the opposition were probably stretched.
"When you're fatigued and having the run around, you can tend to stretch into things and unfortunately we had a couple of players caught and injured.
"It's probably just taken the edge off the evening but I thought it was a really solid and sharp performance."
"Lee and Jordan both seem to have gone over on the ankles in the challenge and that can be anything from four days to four weeks, so you don't really know until we see," Tisdale continued when asked the extent of the injuries.
"I've experienced all types here, anything from a week's injury to Matt Oakley, who had to have his ankle reconstructed.
"You just don't know – we'll look at it and see how it reacts tomorrow, then go from there."
Match report here from Exeter Express and Echo
Exeter City: Olejnik (Pym, 82); McCready (Egan, 79), Sweeney (Ampadu, 60), Brown (Storey, 79), Moore-Taylor (Woodman, 63); Holmes (McAlinden, 71), Harley (Tillson, 75), James (Byrne, 75), Taylor (Wheeler, 60); Watkins (Jay, 75), Simpson (Riley-Lowe, 79). Subs (not used): Pym, Grimes, Smallcombe
Cardiff City: Byrne, Rees, Abbruzzese, Bauer, Menayese, Blaise, Patten, Weymans (Humphries, 65), Healy, O'Sullivan, Bird (Harris, 65). Subs (not used): Coughlan, Coxe, Welch