It should have zero bearing. None whatsoever. Define "full strength" and please include a clause that allows for a tired player to be considered worse than a player normally considered his inferior... it happens Tom. The real isssue here is that you aren't prepared to consider there may be other possibilities.
The real issue is when someone makes an over-reactive statement with very few seconds to consider it ('ridiculous' lineup) and then has to try and defend it against overwhelming levels of logical possibilities
I would accept other possibilities if he hadn't changed half the team. He just wanted to shake things up which is his right but I completely disagree with it.
I worry that someone with your temperament is a referee. Anyway, hopefully this works, and Claude can indeed put two fingers up to all the fans who repeatedly write him off before a ball has been kicked.
My last point on this is that making so many changes for one game very rarely works. We'll see what happens but I'm not expecting a great deal.
