Match Day Thread Vs Newcastle (H)

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THE FOOL said:
The draw for the cup has to be kind, home draws against lower league opposition as much as possible.

Until you get to the semis, there is always going to be a bigger game on the horizon that you could do with resting players for.

Its the way of the world now, the domestic cups mean very little to the club and players, no one is joining a team because they are fa cup winners. The prize money is not significant enough to make a difference.
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That’s a rather cynical way to look at it. Are we going down the route of dismissing competitions because they do not provide much prize money? It has never been our philosophy. We enter all competitions to win them. If we are in the LC or FAC then we play to win. I for one would not wish the club to change.

I can see that because of the closeness of the title race we might want to rest key players. But I do not agree about resting 8 players and literally forfeiting the FA Cup. Call me old fashioned but winning trophies is what’s it’s about. Why enter a competition if you have no intention of winning it?
 
Happy with that. Strongest available XI

(Midfield is always debatable)
 
Chance of a few goals for us today? The way we are set up with Shaq starting...lots of changes for Newcastle :emoticon-0138-think

[HASHTAG]#nojinx[/HASHTAG]
 
carlthejackal said:
That’s a rather cynical way to look at it. Are we going down the route of dismissing competitions because they do not provide much prize money? It has never been our philosophy. We enter all competitions to win them. If we are in the LC or FAC then we play to win. I for one would not wish the club to change.

I can see that because of the closeness of the title race we might want to rest key players. But I do not agree about resting 8 players and literally forfeiting the FA Cup. Call me old fashioned but winning trophies is what’s it’s about. Why enter a competition if you have no intention of winning it?
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It's not cynical, it's realistic.

Teams don't intentionally throw a competition, but every team has priorities and the cups are the lowest, a cup run will impact on your run in, unless you have a huge squad, which we haven't got.

It's a calculated gamble to rest players in the cup and hope to get through while maintaining your league form.

You only know at the end of the season if the decision you made was right or wrong.
 
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happy with team enough. it's 4231 but what can you do?

the key to this game.imo is Kennedy. if he's given free reign on our right side that's trouble.
.we should have enough to walk this game if we get first goal
 
Playing against a team with low morale and not a lot of ability, we should win without paying too much attention to missing players. If we don’t win handsomely by a couple of goals I’ll be most surprised. They’ve conceded many goals and cannot score if their lives depended on it.

3-0
 
I think newcastle game plan is to sit in and frustrate and wear us down to bring big guns on later.

If we dont score early enough could be a long game
 
carlthejackal said:
I can see that because of the closeness of the title race we might want to rest key players. But I do not agree about resting 8 players and literally forfeiting the FA Cup. Call me old fashioned but winning trophies is what’s it’s about. Why enter a competition if you have no intention of winning it?
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Why not ask that question of 95% of the clubs who go in for competitions? Only a handful ever have a chance of winning.
I agree that if you're in a strong enough position you should try to win, but the idea that only winning matters seems to me to display the arrogance of the fans of top clubs.
Surely football is its own raison d'être? After all, the majority of players worldwide never win much, and the majority of true fans never witness their teams lift a trophy.
I realise that your point is more to do with the idea of throwing a lesser competition deliberately, but I'm questioning the accepted wisdom that the only point in playing or watching football is to win. Only a lucky few are in that position.
 
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