Quote from: Dogtanian on August 05, 2022, 10:14:49 AMQuote from: chrisw1 on August 05, 2022, 09:58:30 AMQuote from: Allan C on August 05, 2022, 09:54:21 AMI think with the squad as stands at this moment we’re looking at 10th. If there are other buys we should go higher maybe 8th. Going against the grain somewhat but I don’t really care what we do in the cups. The club doesn’t care so why should we. Because as fans it's kind of nice to see the club lift a trophy?And the club and Smith and Gerrard have repeatedly said they want to compete in the cups…I love Deano but he never took the cups seriously until we were in the semi final. Gerrard did play a full strength team in his one game so far.
Quote from: chrisw1 on August 05, 2022, 09:58:30 AMQuote from: Allan C on August 05, 2022, 09:54:21 AMI think with the squad as stands at this moment we’re looking at 10th. If there are other buys we should go higher maybe 8th. Going against the grain somewhat but I don’t really care what we do in the cups. The club doesn’t care so why should we. Because as fans it's kind of nice to see the club lift a trophy?And the club and Smith and Gerrard have repeatedly said they want to compete in the cups…
Quote from: Allan C on August 05, 2022, 09:54:21 AMI think with the squad as stands at this moment we’re looking at 10th. If there are other buys we should go higher maybe 8th. Going against the grain somewhat but I don’t really care what we do in the cups. The club doesn’t care so why should we. Because as fans it's kind of nice to see the club lift a trophy?
I think with the squad as stands at this moment we’re looking at 10th. If there are other buys we should go higher maybe 8th. Going against the grain somewhat but I don’t really care what we do in the cups. The club doesn’t care so why should we.
It strikes me that us supporters will accept a certain amount of weaker team but there's a trigger point beyond which we seem to regard it as a personal insult.
We don't play a weaker team than anyone else. Remember loads of fuss when Lambert said something like "it's a distraction we could do without" and people seem to assume we don't care ever since, but, as I recall, the only change we then made from the previous league game was the goalie.It's probably fair to say we weren't that arsed when we were in the Championship but, as a Premier League side, we tend to put a strongish team out. Smith never took charge of an FA Cup game while we were in the Premier League but put out much stronger teams than Brighton or Wolves did when we played them in the Leage Cup so seems pretty unlikely he wouldn't have picked a competitive team against Liverpool if he'd been able to do so.
Absolutely no excuses to field weakened teams in the cup this season apart from maybe resting Martinez against League 1 oppostion or below. We have a big squad with plenty of quality on the bench.