KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum 20 games to go to our 1st ever PL Title!

Why expend precious energy and likely risk further injuries in the least desired tournament we are still in? The FA Cup's lustre isn't what it once was, it's a banana skin to the remainder of our season. Everton will be heavy handed in their challenges trying to kick seven bells out of our players. Better it be the kids and fringe players gaining further experience and if they manage to overcome Everton, marvelous and well done you can carry on for the remainder of the tournament as a reward.

We have much bigger fish to fry and getting beaten by Everton with our kids will not alter our 1st teams' momentum one jot.

It would be great to win the premier domestic cup competition. Maybe I'm a traditionalist (aka dinosaur) - I remember competing properly in all competitions and putting out weaker teams in the domestic comps doesn't feel right. First the League Cup and now the FA Cup too? We used to win everything else except The Cup... then suddenly we were in 3 finals winning 2 against Everton and it felt good.

But I also understand your point and I had also thought about how Everton might get 'stuck in' with their challenges. Maybe on this occasion, given our league position, resting players might be the right thing to do.

However, I hope it doesn't become a habit. Otherwise it might just be better if everyone agreed from the start that clubs playing in the European Cup comps don't need to be in the domestic comps.

We don't play champions league until February so why just risk getting dumped out this early when there is a chance to win more silverware? We can change it up and still give them a game as seen in the last game when shaq and Origi ran riot. There is absolutely no reason to play just kids and ignore the chance to make this season even more historic. A blend of first teamers and fringe such as shaq, lallana, milner, origi would do.

We are also playing at Anfield against our bitter neighbors, we need to win this game and advance to the next round.

Normally we could put out a strong team and still rest a few players who need it. We seem to have a few niggly injuries at the moment short-term, players like Ox, Fabinho, Lovren, Shaq, Matip.

I'd give starts to Adrian, Origi, Lallana, Keita, Milner, Elliot & Minamino. That might be enough considering the strikers will be an unknown quantity and looking to impress.

The problems we are going to encounter in Feb/March/April/May with fixture congestion and PL games having to be rescheduled will be big, if we manage to beat Everton and navigate the later rounds of The FA Cup.
We've had to forfeit The League Cup and reschedule the PL West Ham game to 29th January already.

Potential Schedule:

29/2 PL Watford v Liverpool
4/3 3RD ROUND FA CUP
7/3 PL Liverpool v Bournemouth
11/3 UCL Rd 16 2nd Leg Atl Madrid v Liverpool
14/3 PL Everton v Liverpool
21/3 QUARTER FINALS FA CUP -
Potential reschedule of 21/3 PL Liverpool v C Palace
4/4 PL Man City v Liverpool
7or8/4 UCL QUARTER Finals 1st Leg
11/4 PL Aston Villa v Liverpool
14or15/4 UCL QUARTER Finals 2nd leg
18or19/4 SEMI FINALS FA CUP
Potential reschedule of PL Brighton v Liverpool
25/4 PL Liverpool v Burnley
28or29/4 UCL SEMI FINALS 1st leg
2/5 PL Arsenal v Liverpool
5or6/5 UCL SEMI FINALS 2nd leg
9/5 PL Liverpool v Chelsea
17/5 PL Newcastle v Liverpool
23/5 FA CUP FINAL
30/5 UCL FINAL

As much as it is romantic to believe we go all in for every competition, the facts are that we can't, we don't have the squad to navigate such a potential cluster of games.

Agreed!

And certainly not with the current injury list.

Playing Origi in the FA Cup should not be a big concern now, since we also have Minamino available.

The big concern is our defence. Last game it showed that we really need to give both Trent and Andy some rest. And we can't afford an injury to either Joe or Virgil.

So for me it might be time to put a full set of new defenders out against Everton - including Adrián in goal.


Something like:


---------------Adrián---------------

Hoever-Van den Berg-Phillips-Larouci

I agree about resting the back 4, the CB (injuries) & FB (lack of proven cover) are our weak position now, so we need to take every opportunity to rest them now, the FA Cup game is an opportunity, I would go:

---------------Adrián---------------

Hoever-Van den Berg-Phillips-Lewis

Yeah I'm inclined to agree, we don't have enough quality in squad depth to contest the FA Cup, especially in defence, given the injuries we currently have there. Go with the youngsters in the Cup, it's good experience and motivation for them. Our priorities this season has to be the PL and CL and we need to keep our focus firmly on those two comp's IMO. Let's not forget, we've been through a heavy schedule and we just hammered out a tough match against Wolves recently, with another tough contest looming tomorrow night against the Blades, and then more tough fixtures to follow. Salah looks jaded Firmino too though to a lesser extent. Our lads are not machines, they're human, and there's still half a season left, as someone said: we've got bigger fish to fry, let's concentrate on that.

We can still put a decent side out v Everton. I would be starting all the subs from the game tomorrow plus Minamino and Brewster. Almost certain to be a stronger side than played v Villa in the League cup.

Everton sure to be going for it and looking at the FA Cup as a way into Europe next season.

Come on guys its a derby, we can't play with that inexperienced backline, we can give Vvd off and maybe Robbo as Milner can slot in at lb, but too many changes and we are bound to crash out. We can deal with the extra games as we will have players returning soon and players actually want to play as we are in great form. At the start of the season when we had a full squad half a dozen of them were not playing so we need these games to give these fringe players rythm.