Team for Saturday

What do we reckon? Got to balance this being a clear secondary priority for us this season with not wanting an embarrassing defeat to derail our momentum.

There’s four I’d definitely be resting because they’re too important - Cameron, Palmer, Rodrigues and Langstaff. Stick them on the bench in case of emergency. Then we’ve got a few who haven’t played lots of football recently who could do with a game - Young, Bajrami, Francis, Castro, Adebayo-Rowling, Austin and Mitchell. So start them, plus Baldwin and Taylor if they’re fit enough to start their comebacks from injury.

So maybe something like:

Young
Baldwin - Rawlinson - Bajrami
TAR - Castro - Francis - Taylor
Austin
Scott - Mitchell

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jacobncfc

So maybe something like:

Young
Baldwin - Rawlinson - Bajrami
TAR - Castro - Francis - Taylor
Austin
Scott - Mitchell

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I'd say that's spot on. I know it's been pointed out we have one of the smaller squads in the league, but if that's our 'weakest' first team, I'd expect that 11 to be challenging for play-offs in the NL at the least.

Is there nobody we can call up from the u19s? Brad McGregor has been involved in both of the last 2 pre-seasons (including against Coalville last year).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jacobncfc

What do we reckon? Got to balance this being a clear secondary priority for us this season with not wanting an embarrassing defeat to derail our momentum.

There’s four I’d definitely be resting because they’re too important - Cameron, Palmer, Rodrigues and Langstaff. Stick them on the bench in case of emergency. Then we’ve got a few who haven’t played lots of football recently who could do with a game - Young, Bajrami, Francis, Castro, Adebayo-Rowling, Austin and Mitchell. So start them, plus Baldwin and Taylor if they’re fit enough to start their comebacks from injury.

So maybe something like:

Young
Baldwin - Rawlinson - Bajrami
TAR - Castro - Francis - Taylor
Austin
Scott - Mitchell

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It makes no sense, why not start your strongest players? Surely we must keep faith with those that have put us top o' the league and how can you have players too important to play? Should we put out players who aren't important therefore risking losing? What's the point in that?

You can't mean we are guaranteed a win so we only need play a below strength team - really??

You are advocating playing certain players just on the strength of them not having played in the first team for a while - why do you think that is?

Jacob is spot on the cups are not priority.

We want to go up so I agree with everything he has said.

If Langstaff gets a bad injury in a cup we have no chance in that would seriously put us back.

We saw how Chesterfield slipped when their main man got a bad injury we dont want that here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LaxtonLad

It makes no sense, why not start your strongest players? Surely we must keep faith with those that have put us top o' the league and how can you have players too important to play? Should we put out players who aren't important therefore risking losing? What's the point in that?

You can't mean we are guaranteed a win so we only need play a below strength team - really??

You are advocating playing certain players just on the strength of them not having played in the first team for a while - why do you think that is?

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The point in it is that we don’t get our best players injured in a game against a team two leagues below (I don’t buy the idea teams will come and deliberately kick a higher league side about, but it often happens that they aren’t used to the pace and late with challenges etc), and get a couple of players we’re likely to need in the next few weeks some more match fitness. If we lost Rodrigues or Langstaff for three months because of a late challenge in an FA Cup qualifying match against Coalville Town we’d be absolutely gutted, so why take the chance?

You’re never guaranteed a win, but I think that team should be good enough to beat a side from two divisions below - I think it’d be a top half side at our level. If it isn’t then so be it, risk I’m willing to take.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bushwacka

Is there nobody we can call up from the u19s? Brad McGregor has been involved in both of the last 2 pre-seasons (including against Coalville last year).

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We're allowed to name nine subs for this I think, so wouldn't be a surprise to see a couple of youth team players on there. Not sure we have that many fit senior players that we could fill a bench of nine!

All teams that are challenging for honours and playing lower league teams rest their best players, promotion is the number one and only priority for Notts this season imo.
Can't afford to lose our star players through injury, let's face it we won't be going to far in the cup.

My apologies, I forgot it was a cup game.

If you don't rest your best players and/or players who have played the most minutes in this game then you are just daft and playing with fire. It's an absolute no-brainer for me.

Plus players like TAR, Austin, Francis and Mitchell need more competitive minutes, they need to feel involved and this is a great opportunity. If LW can rest key men after a win for a league game I'd be shocked if he didn't ring the changes for a game like this.