Well I'm just going to put it down to a bad day at the office. Roll on Friday, first team out, I can't wait.
I say it every season, and I'm going to say it again, I'm dead set against fielding weakened teams in the Cup comps, it shows disrespect for the English competition, it disrespects the paying fans, and it disrespects English football. We field weakened teams, we suffer the consequences of our actions. We've lost our unbeaten run, and it makes the Boro game more interesting. Now we'll see if we have another groundhog season cos we fielded a weakened team in Cup Comps.............lets all pray we don't.
Evening allnot a good result but I understand bucketman resting players. 3 games in 7 days is probably too much, Also shows our lack of depth in the squad.anyway on to friday(kin stupid day for footie) MOT
Tell that to every other team in the competition. No club with any ambition to do well in their respective leagues give a toss about the cups. Its been that way for a couple of decades now and wont be changing
Agree, the wheels have come off after doing this in previous seasons but preston made 7 changes as well.
I do get where you're coming from, but I don't see how it makes any difference on the whole. For one, to say it's a weakened team (something I myself am guilty of, I hasten to add) is disrespectful to the players whom Bielsa considers good enough to be part of the LUFC first team squad. Secondly, is there really any proven correlation between teams playing a weakened side in the cups and then going off the rails in the league? If we've done it in the past, it's probably because we weren't actually very good, not because the cup games affected us somehow. In fact, I remember the opposite happening fairly frequently - play a full strength team in the cups (2009/10 vs Man Utd and Tottenham, and the Warnock season when we did quite well in both cups) and the league form went to ****. As for disrespecting the fans and English football - it's a squad game. Every team in the country has a squad of 20+ players all desperate to play, and the manager is well within his rights to utilise that squad of players however he deems fit. How dare the manager disrespect English football by giving a few younger players the opportunity to play a game! How dare he offer those he hasn't seen much of the opportunity to prove their worth! Disgraceful behaviour. We could finish 1st or 24th, and nobody is even going to care about this game.
Kiwi,totally agree,thats why teams have squads. Preston are in the same league as us,its not disrespectful. Imagine if we played our first 11, and we got 3 injuries,I think the respect the cup mob would think different.
We still need 2 or 3 more loan players, CB, Big attacker and possibly attacking midfielder if we are going to compete for the whole season. The current support crew just aren't up to it. Get a couple of injuries/ suspensions and we will be heading in one direction only.
No such thing as weakened teams. That is just an excuse fans use when their teams lose....Cup games is an opportunity to use other first team squad players, Some of the players used will play other games throughout the season and were chosen as squad players as the manager and coaches say they are good enough....Another thing fans say when they lose is the club dont want to win the cup. What a load of rubbish that is,,Every club wants to win it and always will be that way.....
