Not obvious at all if he didn't want the win he wouldn't have thrown Tammy and Tomlin on in the second half. The fact that he did also shows he picked a side that he thought could do this whilst trying to rest his prize assets. It didn't work out but that's football. We may well have lost playing both them. Tammy could have got injured and Tomlin could have got sent off. We will never know. And the game was priced the same as a friendly so not sure what your argument is
I said it before, and now again. Our two best players are not machines. If we want them fresh and inspired when it matters then playing them every time City appear in a Tinpot Cup is a BAD IDEA
No win situation for poor LJ....Had he played a full strength side and lost, all the moaners would be coming out with "why didn't he play the young ones and give them a run out"....."why doesn't he use the squad"...blah blah Can you imagine if Tammy would have got injured in the first have had he been playing?? I can hear it now........"why did useless LJ risk our best striker for the mickey mouse cup" Bloody whingers!! Always bloody moaning!!
Two unmarked Hull defenders scoring,without any hindrance from our lot at all. However if we had our strongest team on the pitch,we may have been able to pull the goals back quicker. Just maybe.
Had we had won, we would have been ball 2 alphabetically in the draw. Hull were in fact ball 2 and drew Newcastle.
Nobody goes into a game planning to lose (unless on a betting fiddle), but anyone who has ever played the game knows that cup games are not as important as the league and never will be (unless the FA introduce a league points incentive linked to them - massively unlikely). LJ knows this and deployed his team accordingly. The game was also priced lower and yet the attendance was comparatively poor, which suggests that most fans concur with that sentiment. Yes its disappointing to have lost - and we almost nicked a draw at the end - but I would be a hell of a lot more disappointed if Tammy, Flint, Tomlin - or any of our 1st team had picked up a hamstring or other injury going ****-or-bust over 90 minutes for the chance to play Newcastle in the cup, instead of being available to face Barnsley on Saturday in our campaign to reach the Premiership. I don't have a problem with LJs approach to that game personally.
How do you explain the first goal? How do you explain the second goal? Why was nobody picking up that zone? Why are players not going man for man, or most are not if they have not gone zonal? The team was ill prepared for set pieces. A shambles of the Managers making.
I can explain it by someone not marking or the keeper not coming for the cross. The players coming in still know how to play football and know what a corner is so cant see why the changes made any difference to these goals.
The players were playing zonally .. Badly. A change in personnel and tactics created by the Managers experiment not the players running onto the pitch.
We've lost 3 of the last 4 games and the game, at home we won, was dire and very lucky to come away with 3 points we never deserved. Tuesday was a chance to play a strong team and get back some confidence against a side who will be Championship next May. Let's hope it's not 4 losses out of 5 come 5pm Saturday.
as for "forked tongue" there is a smattering of it .. the problem Lee is making , and I am not anti Lee, is that whilst he might make a cockup or 2 occasionally during our league game season .. and be forgiven, when you make a statement designed to pack to the gate and turn over a lowly placed Prem team .. then turn out a sub "first team " to start, it shows from some the comments in this thread that some are otherwise alienated by it ... it is something in the back of the mind now, or will be after a game or 2. But if things "go awry" the vitrification of Lee will intensify ... after making his statement of "playing the team he did the way he did" ........we better win on Saturday!
All of these negatives about Lee are crazy, we got further in the league cup than for over 20 years plus, we are 6th in the table, our squad of players is better than it has been for years, we are already studying, preparing and planning for the January transfer window, what is the problem ? Things are going well for 2016/17 for god's sake let's enjoy the ride..
Agree from what I've seen/read, and we appear to have thrown away an opportunity to genuinely make the Quarter Finals and regardless of that we have 3 very very tough league games coming up anyway where we'll do well to pick up any points frankly.
A question was answered on a forum. Was the intention to win? The dropping of four of City's strongest players indicated the intent. The quarter finals were the incentive, I attended expecting to see BCFC doing everything possible to progress. If Mr Johnson had revealed his big picture was to make mass changes and play a weakened XI I would have stayed at home and expected the outcome as part of Mr Johnsons strategy regarding rotation ... That is hardly unfair.
Cant remember when we had a better set up squad to be honest. Even in the Old Div 1 days.The depth of midfield is as good as its ever been