The 'Squad' system and the League Cup

[stockyfox]

So we find ourselves 0 – 1 down at half-time, lose 4—2 and wonder why? Frustrated fans criticise the players, berate the officials and call for the manager’s head etc etc.

But to what extent is the principle of the squad system to blame, particularly in the league cup. For some reason best known to themselves, managers (and not just Nigel Pearson), seem to think that this particular competition is an opportunity to give an outing to those who spend more time on the bench rather than the field of play.

Years ago, we had a first team, a reserve team and even an ‘A’ team. At Blackburn, we had a team – a team that was cohesive and operated as one unit. Tonight, we’ve seen Paul Gallagher, Zak Whitbread, Sean St Ledger, Jeff Schlupp, Martyn Waghorn, Marko Futacs and Neil Danns brought into the team for the first time and good players as they are, they have not jelled as a team.

We wouldn’t dream of making such sweeping changes if it was an F A Cuptie, so if we are serious about this competition, why do it now?

Saturday’s team will bear little relationship to tonight. We do have an excellent squad but Ben Marshall, Danny Drinkwater, Jermaine Beckford, Jamie Vardy and David Nugent will all be back.

We should have started with the team that started at Blackburn, tried to secure the game by half-time and brought subs on after that.

[Harry - LCFC]

I agree mostly, we chucked out a load of players who hadn't played in a while and the result was a group of footballers who did not look like a team playing against a lesser Burton side who certainly did look like a team.

Having said this, it isn't an excuse, we're better than Burton and we should have beaten them.

[Captain...]

I said before the game that we should have kept the core of the first team together, give Knocky a start and Whitbread and SSL a half each alongside Morgan, bring Futacs on at some point, and if NP thinks Schlupp is cover for left back, then he should have played there.

I was surprised by the number of changes, and the players didn't look like they fitted the formation, Gallagher is not mobile enough to play in the way we played against Blackburn, and I'm not surprised it didn't work very well, but I still think that we should have beaten Burton with those players.

Not going to lose any sleep over it, the League Cup only matters when you get to the quarter final stage, until then it is a distraction, the fans know it, the players know it, the managers know it, there were a lot of teams knocked out by lower league opposition today, because for Burton this was their cup final, and fair play to them they won it, and deserved to do so.

[Danny the Fox 95]

we made 8 changes, still had a pretty solid team out. But our central defence had no matchfitness prior to the game