FA Cup v Villa

[Mark79]

I put Tsimikas in there originally but I think he's still injured? If not he plays definitely, but otherwise it might be wise to have one experienced player in the back 4?

Ah who gives a ****, it's only the FA Cup

I think Tsimikas is still injured, but maybe Larouci?

Ultimately we’re only playing for our usual 4th round exit anyway.

[Fredo]

I think it’ll be a more or less full side as we probably have prepared for it.

[Mark79]

I think it’ll be a more or less full side as we probably have prepared for it.

We’ll likely still play the same team we planned, but was that necessarily the full side though?

We didn’t at this stage last season.

[Fredo]

We’ll likely still play the same team we planned, but was that necessarily the full side though?



We didn’t at this stage last season.

Klopp mentioned in his presser yesterday that they had ample time before the next game so would take a strong side there. I don’t know now if there would be any change of plans due to now facing Villa’s under 23s.

[Mark79]

Klopp mentioned in his presser yesterday that they had ample time before the next game so would take a strong side there. I don’t know now if there would be any change of plans due to now facing Villa’s under 23s.

[Pablo]

I would change plans and rest those that need it. I still think it'll be a relatively strong team though. Shaggy's guess probably won't be too far off.

[frank the tank]

The FA cup is not run by the premier league.

Didn't say it was.

[Fredo]

FA Cup v Villa

I think we need games to sort out our “issues” though so I wouldn’t be against playing a near full side to give us a bit of a confidence booster before playing United. After that, there’s 9 days before the United game so should be enough.

[Slinky Skills]

We're going to look like right ****s if we lose lol.

[Fredo]

We won’t be losing. Only if we play an under strength team we give ourselves a chance to lose.

[Scratch]

With this new strain being much more contagious, it is looking like there will be more and more postponed games.

It might benefit some teams. In my mind, there is no doubt that Man City benefited from the Everton game being postponed. All of their players of their huge squad that didn't have Coronavirus were a lot fresher playing Chelsea a few days later.

For me, the Premier League have ****ed up by not publishing the rules and regs. Each team has up to 25 senior players named in their squads. If they have 16 players without Corona, then for me they should be made to play the fixture. If some players have other injuries, then that is too bad. If rumours are correct, City had 5 players that had Corona in the run up to the everton game. Big deal. Their squad is huge.

The size of a squad is irrelevant in this case, it was the lateness at which the 5 cases were found (the day of the match, I think?). They had to retest the entire squad to ensure it hadn't spread, and that retest and results couldn't be completed before the Everton game so it was right to postpone it. Playing a game without knowing if other members of the squad had been infected would have been idiotic.

[Mr Pink]

The size of a squad is irrelevant in this case, it was the lateness at which the 5 cases were found (the day of the match, I think?). They had to retest the entire squad to ensure it hadn't spread, and that retest and results couldn't be completed before the Everton game so it was right to postpone it. Playing a game without knowing if other members of the squad had been infected would have been idiotic.

I agree with the logic of not playing a game if there’s a risk of undiagnosed cases, but I got a covid test the week before Christmas and had the results in less than an hour... I feel like they could have retested the squad in time if they wanted- maybe even postpone the game by an hour or so if necessary- or play it the next morning or that... if it had been a normal weekend game it wouldn’t have been as big a deal, but everyone knows, the Christmas period, having to play every 3 days is the toughest part of the season- it took its toll on city the last 2/3 years, and agree with frank that it gave them a big advantage this year- if they had to go away to Everton and then play Chelsea 2/3 days later, things might have been different.

What annoys me is ya know that they will reschedule it at a time convenient to city too- at the very least, they should put it on a Thursday, after a tuesdays CL game, or something, so it would resemble the congested fixture list they would have to play at Christmas...

[Scratch]

As far as I can tell, the PL still send use the nose/back of throat test and send the swabs off, results back with 49 hours. Not sure if that is because it is a more reliable, fail safe test tho? Hence other tests giving a "false positive"?

Agree it came at the right time for City tho, almost conveniently so (which is obviously what Everton thought to, from their response) but such is life. Will make it even better when/if we beat them to the title

[Shaggy]

Until their covid news, I was "looking forward" to this game less than any LFC game I can ever remember. Been really fed up after the last three results and was dreading this. But as the game edges closer, I'm starting to convince myself we should **** making wholesale changes off and pick a pretty strong team - at least the team he had in mind before their news - and absolutely crush Villa 8-0 or something, to try and get some confidence and fluidity back.

Anyone else?

[Fivex]

What if we do that and they hang on for a 0-0?