So our FA Cup draw gives us a difficult away tie. I can't believe I'm thinking this, but should we bother with this cup? I love the FA Cup to bits, but with all our injuries mounting up I'm worried about the number of games the 1st XI are playing. Perhaps we should play a much weaker team, and concentrate on the League (and the League Cup if we are still in it) Your thoughts gentlemen please?
Valid thoughts there smh. Must say I have much the same opinions - just posted this on our board.............. "I do agree about it being a decent vehicle for recovering players to get some game time, but it's a very immotive issue and sometimes practicalities have to take over. There is only going to be one winner of the FA Cup, but there'll be three Championship clubs who'll be playing in the Premier League next season - I'd rather be one of them. Us winning the FA cup is a very remote possibility but playing in the Premier League next season a distinct possibility - even as far as a probablity the way things are going. Maybe a bit of a clinical approach but sometimes you have to make decisions rather than shooting for the moon and missing out altogether."
I went for the Rotate/Rest option but was tempted by the make wholesale changes one. We've already beaten Watford in the LC and we finally got the plum financial draw In Man U that our beating of several Premiership clubs fully deserved. We are on a good run in the league despite a couple of recent wobbles at home, and despite the ever growing injury list, and I wouldn't want our season or chances of a Play Off place (or better) to vanish because we try and chance our arm again and pick up more injuries or suspensions. Let Watford have the tie on a plate I say.
Chose make wholesale changes/ use fringe players. Not sure we're allowed to , but personally would put out as weak a team as possible, we've enough on our plate as it is.
go for it build up the cash reserves and will give a chance to play another prem class to see how we fare, Watford better now than a few months ago
To be fair if we have a few players back from injury, we have such squad depth that we don't need to 'rotate', our backup players are almost as good as the first team, and they really do need game time. In the 3-2 win earlier in the season, the following all played: Magnusson, Vyner, Kelly, O'Neil, Hegeler, Eliasson, Hinds and Taylor. We should go for a similar approach this time around.
This pretty much. It'll be interesting to see what kind of side Watford put out, and I would expect them to be favourites, but we have youth/fringe players who should be able to make a good fist of it. How about something like: Steele Magnusson Kelly Baker/Flint/Wright Vyner Eliasson Bakinson Brownhill/Pack/Smith Leko Taylor Woodrow ...Of course, by then, hopefully we'll have more players available and possibly even a new signing if we're quick out of the blocks...
Good game to let the fringe players get some game time and more importantly a chance to impress. Freddie Hinds has disappeared off the scene since a promising start for example.
I'm open to being proved wrong, but I'm pretty certain loan players CAN play, however, players can only play for ONE club each year in the FA Cup, otherwise they are deemed to be 'cup-tied', so if we played Leko and he returned to West Brom, he then couldn't appear for them.
I tell you what,winning is easy when you are winning. Winning is hard when you are losing game after game. Lets go for it,we have depth in the squad. The more money the merrier i say. Can only improve our financial clout for January 20018
The league is the main aim, but we do t want a humiliating defeat either because the negative vibes from that could permeate into the dressing room, so I went for the rotate option.
No manager is going to go in to a game to lose it.. its the staff you use to do it that is the issue. you should remember we have a large squad these days and the secret of our current success is squad harmony. this is a chance to enhance that by keeping some frustrations in check.
In the period before the cup tie we have 4 games in 10 days - 2 of which are against teams in the Top 5 I would assume that a bit of rotation will happen on these games? After the cup tie there is then a week until we play the following Saturday
