Prioritise Barcelona or Chelsea?

[Damocles]

I've heard about you coming up blank in the middle of the night..

 

[dancity19]

Fernandinho back for Chelsea and Barca.

Great news

Really.

If Nasri is fit too we can easily rotate him and Navas between the two. I know they are different players, but both equally effective in their own right.
Fernandinho being fit is they key though. Great news.

 

[Zin 'messiah' Zimmer]

Fernandinho back for Chelsea and Barca.

Great news

 

[bobmcfc]

Fernandinho back for Chelsea and Barca.

Great news

Get that face off my screen. I was in a great mood

 

[Zin 'messiah' Zimmer]

Fernandinho back for Chelsea and Barca.

Great news

Really.

If Nasri is fit too we can easily rotate him and Navas between the two. I know they are different players, but both equally effective in their own right.
Fernandinho being fit is they key though. Great news.

Navas will start against barca, he's had some belting appearances against them over the last few years!!!!!

 

[david whites spike]

Chelsea 100%....as much as giving a good account of ourselves against barca is important (anything else a bonus) we need to knock Chelsea out of cup.
This cup tie will have a knock on effect for the rest of the season IMO.(for both teams)
If we can beat Chelsea then the treble is a serious possibility.

 

[dancity19]

Fernandinho back for Chelsea and Barca.

Great news

Just read the tweet.

Are you getting it from that- or do you know from elsewhere.

The tweet says 15 days or less??

That doesn't mean he will be back for Chelsea/Barca for certain??

 

[Wilf Wild 1937]

The PL is the number one priority. Both the FA Cup & CL Finals are after the last league game of the season.
Assuming we went all the way then during the PL season we would face 2 more games in the FA Cup if we
were to beat Chelsea (assuming no 6th round replay) and 4 more games in the CL if we were to beat Barcelona.
The CL games would involve much more travelling and there is much less chance of actually winning the
competition. A win against Barcelona would put us on the world stage for a few weeks but winning the
domestic treble would be remembered nationally for decades. Spurs still go on about doing the double
in 1961! So it's the FA Cup for me. I don't think that the club will see it that way though and the injuries
mean that we will probably be able to field a stronger team against Barcelona even though it's only a
few days later.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

I looked at Chelsea bench the other day and it is very strong

They could bring in cole, lampard,mikel, Ba and Oscar for the FA cup whereas we are looking at Rodwell, clichy, Milner, etc....

It has to be the CL as a priority and the Sunderland Match.

Then just give it a shot against Chelsea with the best team we can put out.

If we lose to Chelsea they have more games to play and we can focus on the league.

The last thing we need is a replay the week before the final so gung-ho again for me!

 

[Manchester33]

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.

Prioritise neither, play our best team available for every game and if players get tired, our squad is good enough to replace one or two players each game. Swapping 5 or 6 players is always a bad idea in my opinion, unless we are playing the likes of Blackburn in the cup.