Prioritise Barcelona or Chelsea?

[without a dream]

I think he'll try and get away with a weakened team against Sunderland. In the Chelsea game we're likely to have most of the possession so with some clever managing of rest I think we could get away with it.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

We've had four hammer blows which have impacted us hugely in the last 2 weeks.

1)Drawing Chelsea in the cup
2)Sergio's injury
3) not landing anyone in January
4) the loss of fernandinho

Because of the way the fixture list has fallen these four combined could derail us much further than just Monday's defeat. Starting next Wednesday we have 3 games in 6 days, all of which have a significant bearing on the season. One thing's for sure. You can't play our strongest eleven in all three. We have to rotate massively, but the injuries, particularly fernandinho's, mean than we are going to be weakening ourselves hugely, and we are already badly weakened.

I've been saying since the draw that the only feasible option is to play a very weak team for the middle game against Chelsea, to make sure we can get our strongest team out for Barcelona. But I'm starting to have second thoughts. For all the Champions League's prestige, we unquestionably have a much better chance of winning the FA cup should we get through. So what do we do ?

I still think Chelsea is the game to "throw", but it's a tough one.

I remember a few years ago Arsenal went into February in contention for 4 trophies, and went into March having gone out of three of them. It knocked them back quite severely and their league form suffered, IIRC.

To my mind, losing twice to Chelsea would cause much greater damage to our season than losing to Barca. Moreover, we may not play Barca again for a couple of seasons. We will certainly play Chelsea twice next season and quite possibly more. 3 losses in 3 meetings would not be lightly forgotten.

I take your point about rotating the next 3 games (after Norwich) but one positive factor is that all 3 games are at home (therefore allowing slightly longer for recovery etc). Moreover rotation is something that is effectively being forced on us e.g. by the absence of Fernandinho Aguero Garcia Milner and Nasri. Their return over the next say 2-3 weeks enables those who have had 4 games in 10 days to have a breather.

My view is we play the strongest available team to win all games. If that means we get past Chelsea and get undone by Barca, so be it.

The fact that we are at home certainly helps a lot. We can get the players in ice baths, bed, whatever it takes, rather than on planes, coaches, and in hotels. But I still think that the likes of silva, zab and yaya can't play three times in six days because we cannot afford another key injury, or our title hopes could be gone. Vinny might just do it. Centre halves don't actually use up as much energy.

I'd love to hear from a fitness specialist about this. Remember how poor we were against palace, 48 hours after Liverpool? How much difference does the extra day make, what's the impact of overplaying etc.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I think we all need to calm down and stop panicking !

The concern is legitimate given the absence of fernandinho. It's the biggest blow to our season so far at exactly the wrong time.

 

[Ric]

My view is we play the strongest available team to win all games. If that means we get past Chelsea and get undone by Barca, so be it.

I agree with this. It's a risky stategy, given the impact it could have on our title challenge in terms of fatigue/injuries etc, but a necessary gamble in my eyes.

We could prioritise the Barca game over the Chelsea one, and plausibly lose both which would be disastrous.

 

[blue_paul]

Here's my opinion on things.
IF Fernandinho and Aguero have a chance of making the first leg against Barca - and Aguero seems to be back training - then we prioritise that game over all others.
The whole world will be watching and with Barcelona not setting the world alight this season, we have a chance of going through with our first eleven.
People need to remember we were missing two of our very best players against Chelsea and a resurgent Samir Nasri to boot. Couple that with knocks to the likes of players mentioned above and we were stretched hugely in terms of squad resource. How would Barcelona cope without Messi, Xavi and Busquets?
It all depends on getting these players back and I've a suspicion that Aguero and Fernandinho will be back for the Barca game.
Just three in the middle for Chelsea and Clichy and Kolarov on one flank, we'll be defensively sound then. If we go out, so be it, bigger competitions must take all our focus now. Norwich is a bigger game that next Saturday in the cup.

 

[bobmcfc]

I think we all need to calm down and stop panicking !

The concern is legitimate given the absence of fernandinho. It's the biggest blow to our season so far at exactly the wrong time.

I think we just need to get on with it Dave and do our best for every game, Yes we have had some knocks but all clubs get them.

We will adapt

 

[kenzie115]

I don't believe we can beat Barcelona without Aguero and Fernandinho and so would therefore play our strongest side against Chelsea in the FA cup and play with just one up top against Barca, Silva and Navas/Jovetic behind Negredo with Garcia, Milner and Yaya in the middle, try and keep it tight with the pretence of hoping we pull off another shock away in Europe and win in the Nou Camp with, hopefully, a fully fit squad including Nasri, Aguero and Fernandinho.

 

[Chris in London]

We've had four hammer blows which have impacted us hugely in the last 2 weeks.

1)Drawing Chelsea in the cup
2)Sergio's injury
3) not landing anyone in January
4) the loss of fernandinho

Because of the way the fixture list has fallen these four combined could derail us much further than just Monday's defeat. Starting next Wednesday we have 3 games in 6 days, all of which have a significant bearing on the season. One thing's for sure. You can't play our strongest eleven in all three. We have to rotate massively, but the injuries, particularly fernandinho's, mean than we are going to be weakening ourselves hugely, and we are already badly weakened.

I've been saying since the draw that the only feasible option is to play a very weak team for the middle game against Chelsea, to make sure we can get our strongest team out for Barcelona. But I'm starting to have second thoughts. For all the Champions League's prestige, we unquestionably have a much better chance of winning the FA cup should we get through. So what do we do ?

I still think Chelsea is the game to "throw", but it's a tough one.

I remember a few years ago Arsenal went into February in contention for 4 trophies, and went into March having gone out of three of them. It knocked them back quite severely and their league form suffered, IIRC.

To my mind, losing twice to Chelsea would cause much greater damage to our season than losing to Barca. Moreover, we may not play Barca again for a couple of seasons. We will certainly play Chelsea twice next season and quite possibly more. 3 losses in 3 meetings would not be lightly forgotten.

I take your point about rotating the next 3 games (after Norwich) but one positive factor is that all 3 games are at home (therefore allowing slightly longer for recovery etc). Moreover rotation is something that is effectively being forced on us e.g. by the absence of Fernandinho Aguero Garcia Milner and Nasri. Their return over the next say 2-3 weeks enables those who have had 4 games in 10 days to have a breather.

My view is we play the strongest available team to win all games. If that means we get past Chelsea and get undone by Barca, so be it.

The fact that we are at home certainly helps a lot. We can get the players in ice baths, bed, whatever it takes, rather than on planes, coaches, and in hotels. But I still think that the likes of silva, zab and yaya can't play three times in six days because we cannot afford another key injury, or our title hopes could be gone. Vinny might just do it. Centre halves don't actually use up as much energy.

I'd love to hear from a fitness specialist about this. Remember how poor we were against palace, 48 hours after Liverpool? How much difference does the extra day make, what's the impact of overplaying etc.

Me too. We were better than Arsenal in December and deserved the win, but even so you could see them hit the wall at about the 70 minute mark. I don't think it's a coincidence that the game was at 12.45 on Saturday and they had travelled back from Italy late Weds/early Thursday, before travelling up to Manchester on (I assume) Friday afternoon.

 

[Damocles]

My view is we play the strongest available team to win all games. If that means we get past Chelsea and get undone by Barca, so be it.

I agree with this. It's a risky stategy, given the impact it could have on our title challenge in terms of fatigue/injuries etc, but a necessary gamble in my eyes.

We could prioritise the Barca game over the Chelsea one, and plausibly lose both which would be disastrous.

The problem with this approach is that playing your strongest team against Chelsea will guarantee that they will no longer be your strongest team against Barca. They'll be knackered from playing 3 times in 6 days. There has to be some sort of rotation in there somewhere.

 

[Castiel]

Throw the cup, beat Barca, draw us in the next round.