They weren't even allowed to play the kids:- Premier League rules E. 20 In every League match each participating club shall field a full strength team. B. 13 In all matters and transactions relating to the League each club shall behave towards each other club and the League with the utmost good faith. Revie getting £5,000 fine for fielding a weakened team against Derby County in 1970. And Wolves and Blackpool fined £25,000 for the same offence as late as 2009 and 2010. The rule change in 2011 to allow any selection from the named squad is still ambiguous though. There is some allowance for playing under 21's not in the squad but the rule still applies if the number of under 21's fielded were considered excessive.
I don't disagree but the bit about the ball is a myth. It's the same weight it has been for about 80 years and the only time the weight has ever changed was to make it heavier.
I didnt mean weight at kick off, I meant when it used to get wet and take on the water. However admittedly that was probably a pre-war thing and didnt impact on the Liverpool team I reference.
As others have said, away goals can't play any part in a draw where there is only one leg and one team gets to be away. The only fair way to have a single tie round is a neutral venue, and that's a non starter for fans. Someone always has the home advantage, but that's tough. Should be one game, extra time, then pens. Or, we reduce the size of all the divisions to twenty and make room for replays.
There's already room for replays, they've been played for over a hundred years. Nothing has changed, apart from there's only one replay nowadays .
The thing that has changed is the television coverage. It won't be long before Sky, BT and the likes of will be asking for one of the cup competitions to be binned.
Neutral ground matches while I supported City: 06/02/67 lost 3-1 to Portsmouth at Coventry 07/02/68 lost 1-0 to Middlesbrough at York 13/01/75 lost 1-0 to Fulham at Leicester 22/12/80 won 2-1 to Blyth Spartans at Leeds 30/11/81 won 1-0 to Rochdale at Leeds They stopped them just after we started to get the hang of them.
Someone posted that they can't show games when the Champions league is on, just not enough days in the week for all they want to show. If we could decimilise the hours in a day to 20 we could get an extra day every week ( and a bit left over ) another night to show football on the telly.
Some would argue the FA Cup stopped being what it was when they made penalties the final tiebreaker over normal games over 20 years ago. Once penalties became fashionable they decided important World Cup games too. You could say penalties have some teams playing for draws.
In the 1990 World Cup Final, Argentina played for a draw and penalties from the opening kick off which resulted in a bloody boring game. Fortuneately, Andreas Brehme spoiled their efforts with a normal time winner. The 1994 final in Pasadena, which I attended with my son, wasn't much better ending 0-0 after extra time with Brasil eventually beating Italy on penalties.
Just award the tie to the team that receives the least media attention; that way City would always come out winners in the event of a draw
