Fielding "weakened" teams in the FA Cup

[cmonurz]

During that time we have been a Premier League or top of the Championship side. I'd actually say 9 wins from 22 cup ties is pretty poor.

Franchise - my point is that none of those six players would be expected to play the next league game, and questions would probably be asked (maybe with the exception of Long) if they did.

[eleventh earl of mar]

You can argue the minutae of weakened all you like, but the simple fact of the matter is we DO take the cup seriously and we DO NOT devalue it by not playing the same team as we might in the league

You can say we MIGHT have won a game we lost with the first team all you like, but we MIGHT have performed worse as well.

One off games can see a higher level of performance from players who won't be playing week in week out than it might necessarily from players who were.

It's frankly a pathetic argument and totally meaningless.

Are you saying the same for Man. Utd, Arsenal etc?

[Hoop Blah]

If the so-called weakened team beat a team that fielded a strong team, will you still be complaining about it after the event?

For what it's worth, our record in cups since 2005 is:

Cup ties
W8 D6(2 ended up in shoot-outs) L6

Shoot outs
W1 L1

I'd say that's not a bad record.

I would and have moaned about it.

You're right our record isn't too bad, although it doesn't take into account the opposition and our level of performance, and I can see the merits in what Coppell has chosen to do in terms of squad harmony and taking a look at players. I still don't agree with it though.

In terms of blooding youngsters I'd rather see an almost first choice team with one or two of the likes of Pearce, Karacan or Henry thrown in so that their performance can be compared to first team players and a bad game not chalked down to a disjointed team effort etc etc (I've always said this about both Reading cup sides and England friendlies by the way).

In terms of keeping players happy, if they need games to keep them happy and involved and they're good enough for us to play in a cup game we're taking just as seriously as the league, then give them more of a chance in the league!

[Archie's penalty]

Ah I have missed you guys!

I knew this topic would be on here today and lo and behold it was.

I would love to win the cup and part of me doesn't like the cold, calculating way that Coppell talks about the competition. The other part of me doesn't care that much and is excited to see our academy players get a run out. Remember these are the same players that excited us earlier on in the season and in some ways brought a bit of joy back to the club after the depression of relegation. Remember how excited we were when Copps picked the team he did against Palace at home?

Well we get that again now + the return of Murty and Bikey, and possibly starts from Church and maybe even the return of Lita.

So on the whole I am excited about Saturday and wouldn't worry what the journalist say.

Happy New year all!

[Ian Royal]

During that time we have been a Premier League or top of the Championship side. I'd actually say 9 wins from 22 cup ties is pretty poor.

Franchise - my point is that none of those six players would be expected to play the next league game, and questions would probably be asked (maybe with the exception of Long) if they did.

And yet of the loses about 5 or 6 have been against the big 4. We're yet to be knocked out by a team from a lower league than us in recent years. Excluding the top 4 we've only been knocked out by a team in our own division once. (iirc)

[Sun Tzu]

It's a nonsense of a discussion really.

Coppell is open about his selection and the reasons for it.

Clearly the cup is not considered our number 1 priority and if it were there would rightly be uproar. It is not as importnat as the league, but that does not make it unimportant !

Coppell selects sensible sides for the cup games, and as a club we have benefitted greatly from his selections. Not only has our cup record generally been quite good (certainly in the context of how we have generally performed in cups) but I would suspect our league performances have generally benefitted as well.

The original article saying that the guy is 'glad' we were relegated becasuse of who we selected in a couple of games is nonsensical. He'd presumably have been OK if we had selected a 'full strength' team that had then played at half pace and lost away to Barnet ?

I think he would have been better off having a go at Pompey for fielding a weakened side who performed badly in a crucial league game becasue they considered the cup was more important. That was totally against the spirit of the game and close to being against the rules as well.

[Ian Royal]

You can argue the minutae of weakened all you like, but the simple fact of the matter is we DO take the cup seriously and we DO NOT devalue it by not playing the same team as we might in the league

You can say we MIGHT have won a game we lost with the first team all you like, but we MIGHT have performed worse as well.

One off games can see a higher level of performance from players who won't be playing week in week out than it might necessarily from players who were.

It's frankly a pathetic argument and totally meaningless.

Are you saying the same for Man. Utd, Arsenal etc?

I'm not saying anything about Man Utd or Arsenal, but I can't see how they change anything

[Franchise FC]

During that time we have been a Premier League or top of the Championship side. I'd actually say 9 wins from 22 cup ties is pretty poor.

Franchise - my point is that none of those six players would be expected to play the next league game, and questions would probably be asked (maybe with the exception of Long) if they did.

I can't be bothered to look up all the results, but even my tiny brain can work out that in the last three seasons, plus the Stoke game this season, we've only lost 7 of those 22. If your 9 is correct, that would mean 9 wins, 6 draws and 7 defeats. Converted to league form, 33 points from 22 and if that's what our 'weakened' sides can manage, I'm pretty happy with that.

I'm also a little surprised that there's no-one making the argument that, during our promotion season, our cup side included the likes of Hunt and Lita. Maybe they would not have progressed (and regressed in Lita's case) as they did without that cup exposure. (sorry, Freudian slip)

[Baines]

cmonurz has this spot on. We have undoubtedly play a weakened team in the cup competitions. Looked at over the past few years there are numerous examples where the team in league matches either side of a cup game is different to that in the cup game.

There is no doubt that we have been taking the league seriously throughout these seasons, so the only sensible conclusion to draw is that we take the cup less seriously.

The argument that, on a one-off basis we might get a higher level of performance from a second-choice player doesn't really work when you consider the amount of changes that have been made from the league team and the fact that those amount and kind of changes don't get made in league games.

The effect of a number of clubs operating on a similar basis has devalued the FA Cup. So, Reading aren't alone in doing so, but it's pretty depressing nonetheless.

[Sun Tzu]

The effect of a number of clubs operating on a similar basis has devalued the FA Cup. So, Reading aren't alone in doing so, but it's pretty depressing nonetheless.

The cup has been devalued because of the massive hype surrounding the Premier League, not because we selected John Oster for a 4th round cup game.....

[Baines]

The effect of a number of clubs operating on a similar basis has devalued the FA Cup. So, Reading aren't alone in doing so, but it's pretty depressing nonetheless.

The cup has been devalued because of the massive hype surrounding the Premier League, not because we selected John Oster for a 4th round cup game.....

Rather obviously, the first half of your sentence (the second half appears irrlevant to the point I was making) is related to the behaviour of numerous clubs, including Reading.

[Victor Meldrew]

The FA Cup is a competition that we have a chance of winning,The Premier League we never had a chance of winning.
Last season Cardiff made the final and Millwall did a few years ago so both of these clubs were in with a great chance of winning the most famous competition in the history of football let alone the income from a cup run and the kudos of playing in Europe.

I can understand rotation by the big clubs because not only do they have 38 league games but normally at least around 12 Champs League and possibly 10 or so more if they reach the later stages of the two cup competitions and as all their players are internationals there can be up to about 12 fixtures or so especially in a World or European Cup year so top players could play around 70 or so games in a year.
Take somebody like Rosenior,Armstrong or Harper.
If they only play league games that's a maximum of 46 in a season and these are very fit young men and don't forget our league games don't have the intensity of a European cup final or a world cup semi.
So on the grounds of fitness and keeping players fresh I don't see that even 5 cup games are going to knacker these players.

The League Cup has become the competition for experimentation and most teams from the top two levels use it for that purpose and as crowds are generally low there's not much financial reward for progressing and in our case there are normally 2 or 3 games for that experimentation.I'm not sure that you learn too much about a player because the side is often a disjointed one which may never have played together before.
In a lot of countries there are no such things as Reserve teams and players just have to train hard and grab that opportunity when it occurs-I think there is something in that and in fact didn't we (out of financial necessity) scrap ours a couple of times?

Personally I have always liked the idea of keeping a winning side together and players love playing-training is still thought of as a chore by players.
Last Sunday Coppell openly decided to "rest" Cisse and Harper and we know how disjointed the team looked with Marek and Bryn in the middle.I think the decision cost us 2 points which just might prove more important than resting Cisse and Harper for 60 minutes freezing on the bench.

Finally the question of money.
When Bournemouth lost to Blyth it was thought that in doing so they gave up on £250,000.That is a fortune for a club in their position and there was never a question of playing a weakened team (the one they have is already weak)but (and most of us can remember when we had to scrap around for free transfers-it's not that long ago) it seems as though the revenue isn't an issue despite the bleatings from the club last September about harsh financial prospects and how the club would have to be so careful about money.
So on monetary grounds alone I would have thought that the club would be very keen to make progress and if Long in place of Doyle and Kelly in place of Armstrong is not a weakened team then why are these players not in the first team already or is the club saying that we have a lot of players but they are of equal ability? I don't believe that.
I would have gone to Cardiff but since the two games v WBA when we started rotation in the FA Cup I don't go to watch a mish-mash team that is playing a game like a friendly-that's what pre-season games are for not the 3rd round of the most famous competition in world football.

The writer has picked on us and it could have been addressed to a number of others -but I don't care about those others whereas I care that our club has recently gone Billy Big-time on a number of issues and I don't like it.

[Ian Royal]

The effect of a number of clubs operating on a similar basis has devalued the FA Cup. So, Reading aren't alone in doing so, but it's pretty depressing nonetheless.

The cup has been devalued because of the massive hype surrounding the Premier League, not because we selected John Oster for a 4th round cup game.....

Out of curiosity how many times has an English competition been won by one of the non big 4 since 2000. And who were the teams?

[SpaceCruiser]

I can't be bothered to look up all the results, but even my tiny brain can work out that in the last three seasons, plus the Stoke game this season, we've only lost 7 of those 22. If your 9 is correct, that would mean 9 wins, 6 draws and 7 defeats. Converted to league form, 33 points from 22 and if that's what our 'weakened' sides can manage, I'm pretty happy with that.

I posted those stats on the previous page. And it's 4 draws, not 6, since the other two draws have ended up in shoot-outs.

[Hoop Blah]

During that time we have been a Premier League or top of the Championship side. I'd actually say 9 wins from 22 cup ties is pretty poor.

Franchise - my point is that none of those six players would be expected to play the next league game, and questions would probably be asked (maybe with the exception of Long) if they did.

And yet of the loses about 5 or 6 have been against the big 4. We're yet to be knocked out by a team from a lower league than us in recent years. Excluding the top 4 we've only been knocked out by a team in our own division once. (iirc)

Those same top four clubs who've all recently been knocked out of cup competitions by the might of Barnsley (two big 4 scalps just last season), Burnley (on more than one occassion), Palace, Coventry, Southend etc etc etc...

[Ian Royal]

During that time we have been a Premier League or top of the Championship side. I'd actually say 9 wins from 22 cup ties is pretty poor.

Franchise - my point is that none of those six players would be expected to play the next league game, and questions would probably be asked (maybe with the exception of Long) if they did.

And yet of the loses about 5 or 6 have been against the big 4. We're yet to be knocked out by a team from a lower league than us in recent years. Excluding the top 4 we've only been knocked out by a team in our own division once. (iirc)

Those same top four clubs who've all recently been knocked out of cup competitions by the might of Barnsley (two big 4 scalps just last season), Burnley (on more than one occassion), Palace, Coventry, Southend etc etc etc...

Yes those are the ones. They've rotated their squads, got little to no flak for it and paid. But then cup upsets have been happening much longer than rotating your squad.

[Jimbo]

Is there anyone here who thinks that the Cup game on Saturday is more important than the League game on the 9th?

I don't think so.

If Coppell played Doyle on Saturday and he got injured for the rest of the season there'd be an uproar.

The way the 'first' team have been playing recently, the likes of Karacan, Convey, Lita, Long and Henry could force their way into the that team if they play really well, and they know it.

I think we could see a cracking performance against Cardiff.

[Sun Tzu]

The effect of a number of clubs operating on a similar basis has devalued the FA Cup. So, Reading aren't alone in doing so, but it's pretty depressing nonetheless.

The cup has been devalued because of the massive hype surrounding the Premier League, not because we selected John Oster for a 4th round cup game.....

Rather obviously, the first half of your sentence (the second half appears irrlevant to the point I was making) is related to the behaviour of numerous clubs, including Reading.

The second half is entirely relevant.

The original article accuses us of devaluing it. Our selection policy hasn;t devalued it, there are many more significant reasons.

[Baines]

The second half is entirely relevant.

The original article accuses us of devaluing it. Our selection policy hasn;t devalued it, there are many more significant reasons.

Our selection policy has been rather more wide ranging than the change of a single player.

The more clubs which treat the cup as a second class competition by playing second choice players, the more the competition is devalued. We are one of those clubs. No one sensible would say that this is the only cause, or that it operates in isolation from other causes, but it is clearly of significance because the best way a club has of showing that it considers a competition to be serious is the team chosen for matches in that competiton.

[Hoop Blah]

Those same top four clubs who've all recently been knocked out of cup competitions by the might of Barnsley (two big 4 scalps just last season), Burnley (on more than one occassion), Palace, Coventry, Southend etc etc etc...

Yes those are the ones. They've rotated their squads, got little to no flak for it and paid. But then cup upsets have been happening much longer than rotating your squad.

I know upsets have been happening all along, as I think all the those clubs have got stick for resting players cup games and even more so when it costs them their chance to win it. Wenger got a shed load of stick when his youngsters lost to Spurs the other year, even though his young side have proven to be a good match for top 4 sides in the cup over the years.

My point was that the top 4 are not unbeatable, especially in the cups. There seem to be a number of posters on here today that are falling in to the Sky led trap of thinking that just because we've made a valient attempt to get a draw or have been narrowly beaten it's enough against them because they're the mighty top 4.

The likes of the teams I mentioned earlier show that anyone can knock one of the top 4 out if they give it a good go. We've not given ourselves the best chance of doing that over the last few years and I think thats a real shame and I think we have to accept any flak that comes our way because of it.