Hasn't he been told top 4 priority? Even if we get something out of today's game playing Marin Torres Bertrand etc over Hazard mata ba cole is wrong. Oh, and Lamps/Mikel together too. Top 4> fac up all day long. Can't help feeling Rafa would rather beat united and win a trophy than get top 4 as he is off soon. How long til Mata hazard and Ramirez come on today then??
tough week tbf, he'd be criticised no matter who he played. I think we'll lose merely because we're without Mata which isn't Rafa's fault so I hear. However, as much as I want to win the FA cup again, top 4 should be priority as we can't afford to finish outside of it again.
Mata not in squad??!!! No top 4, no Jose would be a great legacy for fatso. Hazard should have started as we need the points and Ramirez and cole too
This is up there with Monaco and Barnsley for me. Win today and top 4 was ours. Southampton will run rings around that team, Pochettino has got them pressing very well. Can't see anything other than a Saints win, don't see how we will score.
As soon as I saw the team sheet I got that sick feeling in my stomach that feeling that we aint going to win this game.
Look 'longer term'. Our most throw away game is Kazan. Mata, Hazard, Rami, Luiz are being rotated so they play vs United, miss Kazan, play vs Sunderland. Also Torres must play against Kazan, so he is being rotated so that he misses united and Sunderland. Lamps will miss United and play Kazan. There are no perfect answers, but it kind of makes sense. Sunderland is just a key a game as today, and we simply don't have personnel to play a completely different starting 11 vs united and Kazan.
**** the second we get back into the game we concede again not surprised tho the team we have out today is awful.
Agree. If we had fielded a strong side today it could have set us up nicely for the next couple of weeks
I can understand resting some of our key players but he's rest all of them and even left out our best player this season out of the squad completely.
We knew Arsenal would win and Spurs was 50/50. Arsenal now only 2 behind with home advantage (game in hand) as well as having a better run of fixtures
Sunday I know the fixture pile up is bad, but surely they give you one day off! Arsenal haven't got a game in hand on you