Fuck me, let's hand over the points now shall we - Silva out, Yaya not up to it, team a mismatch and mishmash of half-hearted dilettantes. Christ, I remember (not THAT long ago) when our biggest selection problem was Terry Phelan or David Brightwell at left-back.
All this talk of resting Silva is utter horseshit. He played him because he thought he would have been central to us winning. And subsequently proceeding to the QF of a major pot. Can you imagine Tony Book being berated for playing Bell in the 76 cup run as it hampered our league chances? No, we took it as part of the footballing God's dishing out what happens naturally - folk get injured. You cannot ever legislate for it. If you do, if you start hedging your bets, you'll come unstuck. Big time. I've said it before, but will repeat: We have a squad of fantastic depth. Play the strongest team. Always. Start big, finish big. And if we pick up a couple of knocks, so be it. We played an almost full team throughout all cups last year - West Ham 2nd leg included. It served us well.
Silva is a blow. But I look at Vinny, Serge, Yaya and Joe and know our spine is as strong as any team in the world. So quit fucking whinging, quit moaning about could haves, would haves should haves and remember: this team has the ability to absolutely destroy those cunts on Sunday. If the stars align, if we play to our absolute best, those cunts will walk off remembering just which team are the current champions. It ain't them.
