Okay, I'll answer your question. Only just seen it. Monk put that team out of his own accord in my opinion. At the time, I selected a very similar team because when you look at the fixtures and travelling, players need a rest and the FA Cup was the only real opportunity to do so. I can assure you that Huw Jenkins wasn't controlling me when I selected my predicted squad. I also predicted weaker squads for the Europa League games vs Napoli, but I'm glad Monk went strong in those because we very nearly pulled off a miracle! It's pure common sense to realise that you can't expect players to travel up and down the country/continent playing a match every 3/4 days. Not only would they have very limited time on the training ground, but you'll have players starting matches at 60-70% by the end of that run.
Not sure your link has worked, mate! But weird that it's worked when I quoted you. Very strange indeed...
