So it's 'disrespectful' to the Cup. Even if you're right (which I don't think you are) I honestly don't care. Winning on Wednesday is all I care about. The future of my Club depends on staying in the Premiership and if that means us being 'disrespectful' to the Cup then so be it. Playing a full strength team yesterday could well have impacted on our performance this coming Wednesday. All the people in the game that I've heard on this subject say the same. Ironically, Sam Allardyce said that he was very concerned about the closeness of these fixtures because it was too tough on the players. If you think that's wrong then you are disagreeing with people who have been in the game for years and simply don't understand the Premiership or the physical demands it puts on players. In short, **** the Cup.
Dai - I was stunned when I saw Bartley leading out the team. When I saw the line-up, I expected Cork to be skipper. What we had was 11 "PL" players against a L2 TEAM - one group had never played together as a unit, whilst the other had lost just once in 16 (now 17). Curt may have been naive about how quickly they would gel - but, in my humble opinion, he is 100% correct that Wednesday is far more important to us. Against Sunderland we will get a better idea of whether Curt and his back room staff have the tactical nous to save us......
....If he's got any sense Taff he'll be looking at how we can break down the bus that will be parked whilst drilling the defence on how to handle Defoe. He's likely to come on late and don't forget he ALWAYS scores against us.
it's my club tooAussie and that defensive set up was disrespectful to the FA Cup competition and the fans . I'm not talking about playing our first team totally , just a defensive set up with just a whisper that were actually going try to remotely win the game .putting out that team and using Wednesday as an excuse is a total cop out . You and all you're buddies around you have you're opinion , and I have mine .
Team selection and the "disrespect" shown to the FA cup. Re: Shepherd Laudrup unearthed Ben Davies by giving him a chance. According to your logic youngsters shouldn't be given a chance even if we are drawn against a conference team? Shepherd had Bartley inside him, Cork as the anchor man and Emnes up ahead of him....we should have been able to cope with a youngster having a difficult debut. The senior players let us down. Re:Tabannou He needed to get minutes, if he wasn't going to get them in the cup at Oxford where was he supposed to get them? Re: Grimes What's the point in paying good money for one of the brightest talents in L2 if you are not even prepared to give him a game in the cup against L2 opposition? Again, Shelvey was the senior player and it was he who let us down. Cork wasn't great either. We had a front 3 of Montero, Gomis and Emnes.....2 have international caps, 1 has been a useful squad player who we all wanted to see start this game. We had a midfield that contained 3 England prospects....1 full cap in Shelvey, 1 potential cap in Cork and 1 England U-21 youngster who has been bigged up by the media (and Monk etc.) We had a defence that contained Amat (never let us down), Bartley (ex-Arsenal & Rangers), Tabannou (was ripping up the French Ligue 1 until recently), and 1 youngster. We had a young Swedish International in goal. The players let themselves down, especially the senior players. I hope Shelvey and Gomis are shipped out this month, their departure can't come quick enough....actually, Bartley too. The fact that the second string weren't up to speed is Garry Monk's fault.....was he seriously expecting to go the whole season without a clutch of injuries at some stage? Imagine if we had lost Taylor and needed Tabannou? If Ash/Fed went down and we needed 1 of Bartley or Amat? If a couple of forwards were unavailable and we needed to start Emnes? He should have been rotating the squad. It was ****ing criminal management and sapped all remaining spirit from the squad. He also put Shelvey and Gomis front and centre of his plans. Yesterday Curt did what was broadly necessary. Could he have played Naughton? Yes, but he wanted to blood a youngster. Blooding youngsters is bloody important. Could he have played Ash instead of Bartley? Yes but why put ourselves at a disadvantage on Wednesday. What is the point of Bartley being on the wage bill if he can't hack it at Oxford? Could he have played Taylor instead of Tabannou? No, absolutely not....this Tabannou situation has gone on long enough. He needs to be getting subbed on in the Prem next. Could he have started Barrow instead of Emnes? Yes but Barrow will play a part on Wednesday, his freshness and speed could be crucial off the bench v Sunderland and Emnes has always looked useful. Again, if he can't be trusted to play against Oxford we need to sell. Could Eder have started instead of Gomis? Yes. The only selection I wouldn't have made, but Gomis did need a goal and confidence and Ayew is likely to start on Wednesday. Perhaps he is planning to give Eder minutes from the bench and start him in the odd Prem game....perhaps he is not quite fit enough following his return from injury.
Got no problems whatsoever with playing any of these players , just not all at once especially, with a defensive set up that that lets a League 2 team run riot behind that defence with not a shred of first team players in sight .
The lack of progress in the FA Cup over the last 5 seasons is due in part, to the fact that we have had some bad luck with the draws having only had one home draw in the last 5 years. 2015/16 3rd Oxford 3 Swansea 2 2014/15 4th Blackburn 3 Swansea 1 3rd Tranmere 2 Swansea 6 2013/14 5th Everton 3 Swansea 1 4th Birmingham 1 Swansea 2 3rd Man Utd 1 Swansea 2 2012/13 3rdR Arsenal 1 Swansea 0 3rd Swansea 2 Arsenal 2 2011/12 4th Bolton 2 Swansea 1 3rd Barnsley 2 Swansea 4 1 in 9? It's a fix by the FA.
The FA Cup and League Cup should be for the Championship and down without Premier League involvement. Premier League teams in general basically sh:t all over both competitions by the poor teams fielded , disrespectfully, till they are put out or one of a few Premier teams left in the later rounds . Then and only then do the Premier teams left take it serious and field they're strongest teams and win it .Its like "Groundhog Day " every year . The last time a non Premier team won it is 35 years ago I think . The root of the problem , like most things, is the lust for (Premier League )money .
You should write for fortune cookies....unfortunately half the world won't have the opportunity to open one up or have the meal previous ....it's a fact of life but it doesn't make it right
Roof I went yesterday and although initially disappointed when the team was read out I still had the same sense of pride of watching the players warm up , they all play for the Club some better than others and some a lot bloody worse. But I believed and still do we had a decent enough side out to beat them ,the pitch wasn't brilliant but it wasn't going to be a reason not to play decent football .We didn't we lost and lost to the better team not because of the team overall but because of individual performances (again) ,watch how easy we scored our goals which came from us actually putting a bit of effort in , if ours had matched Oxford in terms of desire and will to win then I'm convinced we would have won that game
The difference between the two teams yesterday was one team knew how to play together and had plenty of minutes together . Unlike some I place little blame on any of the players, only on who put them , especially the defence , onto the pitch together .Great expectations with little planning or respect for the competition itself . But , time to move on
So in other words we should have played our first 11 for the sake of cohesiveness? After all they've had "plenty of minutes together". Or are you still maintaining that those renowned match-winning-game-changers Eder and Naughton should have been the only changes? Make up your mind. You've also praised Curtis's willingness to experiment with fringe players which seems contradictory to your other views. Thank **** you're not the manager - the players wouldn't know where to go, what to do or what strip to wear. Stop knocking Curtis. That team should have been good enough to win a game against a 2nd Div outfit. Even if they are fringe players they are PREMIERSHIP fringe players that could be called upon at any time by us in this Division. If you feel a burning desire to heap the blame try it on the players who didn't perform.
There you go again , where have I said we should play our first 11. The only reason I wanted to use Eder and Naughton is to keep them fresh in case of injury and especially Naughton for a bit of expierence in the back 4 . Like I said on another thread our back 4 had 4 games started combined in the Premierthis season .Sunderlands back 4 had 54 games started in the Premier combined this season and they are below us ....RESPECT . Naughton , Amat , Williams , Tabanou would probably taken us to the next round .Williams should have captained the team , he's used to playing every game .Now from here , read twice and post once meathead
Why the name calling? I thought you were better than that. You think that by jumping up and down and being abusive you'll get others to agree with you? Most people don't and neither does the person who matters - Alan Curtis - so get over it and move on. Advocacy is the art of persuasion, not losing one's rag. Remember that. Oh, and the first sentence in my post was followed by a question mark. In this country that means it's a question. Read the post again.
Oh ..there you are ....between the lines ...lol ...And I'm not knocking Curtis , he might not have made the line up ..sorry Aussie , just havin a bit of fun , like you I hope ....cheers
This. Even though we played **** we cut them open easily in the final third. - Montero should have hit the target in the 1st 10 minutes - Montero should have scored his second in the 2nd half - Gomis should have scored the chance Barrow fashioned for him late on - Shepherd and Kingsley found themselves in the box in the 2nd half and hesitated when a firmly struck cross shot should have been executed. - Shelvey and Grimes had free kicks in good positions which they should have done better with - Shelvey skied a volley miles over from just inside the box. - Cork had a good header on target which forced a save We didn't deserve to win the game because collectively we didn't put the effort in.....especially Shelvey and Gomis who were an absolute disgrace to the shirt. Grimes pissed me off to, playing like a big time charlie.
