I am not sure if Norwich are going to prefer playing in the Championship next season to winning the FA Cup
I think Dean Smith is a pragmatist and sees the relegation 6 pointer v brentford on Saturday as a much bigger game for his club. And it's quickly followed by Leeds game. They know full well we will send out the reserves midweek so 120mins should not matter. I am.sure they will have a bit of a go but equally if they want to have any hope of staying up they really really ought to not knacker pukki chasing our cbs about again. Pride says have a go but pragmatism says play a few squad.players and use the 5 subs.
No disrespect intended to Norwich and certainly want to dodge any jinxes... But honestly our second eleven should be able to beat even an almost full strength Norwich most times. FA cup is very winnable, almost at the point in the competition to be worth taking seriously*, but our PL hopes count on winning every game remaining. Rest our best against Norwich. If we lose, that's a shame but, oh well. *FWIW: I've always considered League Cup not worth taking seriously until the semis and FA cup not worth taking seriously until the quarter finals... If you make it that far it's worth trying hard to win. If you drop out before then... Oh well, no biggie.
Well, in Norwich's credit, if it eases the disrespect any, they do have a pretty kit and yellow and green is less common, so more unique. Norwich should be commended for having a pretty kit.
dean smith: Dean Smith admits he has some selection issues to ponder as he looks to juggle Norwich's cup commitments alongside their Premier League relegation battle. The Canaries are bottom of the Premier League and five points from safety after their defeat at Southampton on Friday. "This is the oldest cup competition in the world," said Smith. "The FA Cup means a lot to us and we’ll be trying to go out and win but unfortunately we have to balance our team knowing we have a massive game against Brentford on Saturday. There is a balancing act that we have to play. "We’re lucky now that the competition allows five subs. That’s the sort of thing we’re looking at. We’re looking at the robustness of our players and the ones that can play and recover very quickly." Should Norwich win at Liverpool then their Premier League match against Chelsea, scheduled for FA Cup quarter-final weekend, will have to be moved. It has already been confirmed the match will take place on Thursday 10 March. Smith is not happy with the scheduling given the Canaries travel to Leeds three days later, with a match against another relegation rival Brentford taking place the previous weekend. Asked whether the fans had been considered when rescheduling matches, the Canaries boss made his feelings clear. "They certainly haven’t been. I don’t think us as a football team have been either," he said. "It’s two big games with teams around us in Brentford and Leeds and why it can’t be on the Tuesday or Wednesday heaven knows why. "Yes I know it’s a Champions League night but the precedent was set the week before when Burnley played Tottenham on a Champions League night. It’s very rare that games get brought forward and the announcement was a bit of a surprise to all of us." ..................... it think he should focus on the league myself and give us a bye.
In practice he probably will. The bigging up of the cup is surely just rhetoric - even if they managed to beat us their chances of lifting it are almost non-existent. PL survival has to be their aim - even though it's looking beyond them now. Of course tomorrow depends on just how much of a scratch team we decide to field.
IMO they must beat brenford and leeds to have a hope in the league and if that means binning the cup then they need to do that. It'd be par for course they put in their best game of the season tomorrow night then fold v brentford. Really we just want a non complicated result and go play our own key game at the weekend and frankly half this site despite being all gooey over the league cup are back in the cups don't matter bullcrap mindset
Jurgen Klopp says Thiago Alcantara hamstring injury is not too serious. He will miss Norwich, probably West Ham and maybe Inter Milan next week.
we'll be out of europe and out of fa cup and out of league as well, its a tragedy for the club............well if your stats actually count for anything
please log in to view this image Jurgen Klopp doesn’t want to hear about LFC going for a quadruple! He has pointed out just how hard it is to do – and we’ve picked out five things from his press conference today Norwich will be missing Ozan Kabak among six injury absentees for the Anfield game, while here we pick out two potential line-ups for the Reds with heavy rotation from the final Dean Smith is unhappy about the 500-mile round trip on a midweek night that Norwich fans face, as well as potential rescheduling issues if they progress
please log in to view this image Martin Atkinson has been confirmed as the referee for the cup clash, while John Brooks is on VAR duty. This will be Atkinson’s third Liverpool game of the season, in all competitions, and he has been a lucky charm to date. The 50-year-old oversaw the hard-earned 1-0 win away to Burnley in the Premier League, as well as the 2-0 victory at Arsenal in the League Cup semi-final second leg.
The good thing about Atkinson is he doesn't give a **** and has the attitude he doesn't owe anyone a decision. The bad thing about Atkinson is you'd need to be decapitated to get an actual free kick or penalty.
So, he's reffed two of our games this season and we won them both, and this makes him a "lucky charm". Not very challenging criteria to gain that talismanic status then.
Liverpool could match a winning streak they last produced almost 15 years ago if they beat Norwich tonight, which would clinch their best FA Cup run since 2015. Today, Liverpool could win an 11th game in succession for the first time since August 2007.
