When we fielded a depleted team and surrendered to a terrible spurs side at home the whole media piled on to both the team and the manager - that selection by the manager has been thoroughly vindicated. If we'd played a full strength side and tired players had picked up a few injuries here and there the outcome could have been massively different. Instead we came out with a virtually full strength side with the throttles wide open. We obliterated Forest, obliterated Liverpool and obliterated Freiburg in a major final. Emerys strategy over what was the crucible of our season was borderline genius and bravery in action. I've long believed that Ron Saunders was our greatest manager - certainly in my time - increasingly I am now not so sure.
Although if we'd have fielded a strong and won vs Spurs the main players would have only had to play 1 game between then and the final whereas because of the Spurs game they had to play 3. Luckily it's not important now but it was far more risky going weak then it would have been had we gone strong vs Spurs
I'd argue that given the whole thing played out perfectly, the risk was judged completely correctly.
