Morning All,
The debate rages about top clubs fielding weakened teams in the Carabao Cup. Plenty of fans think it mocks the competition. However, I think if you've spent money on a squad of say 33 players. They all feel they should play and should think they are good enough to be in the first team.
So how is this a weakened team? As a club you pay the player's wages and the manager should feel free to pick whatever team he deems fit.
The gripe I have with it is that League football is now the be all and end all .
Both cups are now massively undervalued , I was looking the other day at the Spurs team we faced in the league cup in 1986 , it was over two legs and Spurs took a 3-2 lead back to WHL .
Clemence , Ardiles , Hoddle , Allen , Claeson , and Waddle all played in both games .
It irritates me more in the FA cup because it's a great competition envied the world over and it's history and heritage are totally disrespected .
The cups were always something you looked forward to , can't say that's the case today because they are so undervalued by the majority of PL and Championship clubs .
Yet another attempt by foreigners to devalue everything we have good in this country. It was when foreign managers arrived in this who started this trend.
I believe that the managers look at the team they are playing against and pick a team that they think will be good enough to beat them utilising the full squad and youth in order to look at fringe players for me its fine, some times they get beat and then their fans get short changed. you can only beat the team you face and if they loose their fans should not be saying it was only our second team. it is their team and the one that the manager picked
Says a lot about the mentality these days Exile. I know I'd rather be playing week in, week out.