FA Cup QFs Draw - Swansea (A)

I think Pep should treat the FA Cup as an opportunity to give the youth a chance, we simply cannot expect the senior players to play 64 games in a season, however much rotation is used, and with five or six injured players, they will either need nursing back gradually or rested completely. Bernado And David Silva need to be used for EPL and Champions League only, unless we get to the FA Cup final. Sterling and Aguero also need to be used sparingly for the big push. Hopefully Stones will be withdrawn from the England squad and get recovery time to achieve full fitness for the April challenge. If de Bruyne is out for a few weeks, surely better to keep him back for the Champions League Semis, assuming we get that far and he is fit by then. Mendy might be fully fit by then, no point in rushing anyone back, apart from the Rags away we should have enough strength in depth come April as long as we blend youth and experience wisely. I suspect Pep knows this though
 
Any news on the ticket criteria being lowered from 15k ?

Was hoping it would go lower when first announced.
 
Bournemouth Blue said:
I think Pep should treat the FA Cup as an opportunity to give the youth a chance, we simply cannot expect the senior players to play 64 games in a season, however much rotation is used, and with five or six injured players, they will either need nursing back gradually or rested completely. Bernado And David Silva need to be used for EPL and Champions League only, unless we get to the FA Cup final. Sterling and Aguero also need to be used sparingly for the big push. Hopefully Stones will be withdrawn from the England squad and get recovery time to achieve full fitness for the April challenge. If de Bruyne is out for a few weeks, surely better to keep him back for the Champions League Semis, assuming we get that far and he is fit by then. Mendy might be fully fit by then, no point in rushing anyone back, apart from the Rags away we should have enough strength in depth come April as long as we blend youth and experience wisely. I suspect Pep knows this though
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Completely disagree with you regarding youth etc. We're in the quarter finals against a Championship side (a reasonably poor one at that). The only other 'big 6' club remaining in the competition is United, who have a tricky away draw against the third favourites. We will never get a better opportunity to win this cup. I understand your point about squad management, but we have the best squad in the world. We HAVE to play this game, so winning the trophy is only an extra 3 games. Contrast that with the Champions League, we've got potentially 6 more games to play and a significantly reduced chance of winning it.

Personally I don't agree with rotation for the sake of rotation. I think that we should pick our best available team, for every game, from this stage onwards. When players start getting fatigued and begin to pick up knocks, we can bring other players in. That's more organic, it keeps us at a high level and maintains rhythm. We're beyond the point of having rest games now. Every game is a cup final. The chance to integrate youth has been and gone.
 
The FA Cup triumph in 2011 is where this golden era for our club all started and I'd love us to win it again. You can tell Pep is desperate to do it as it's the only domestic trophy he hasn't won.
 
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