[Archived] Rovers V Coventry Fa Cup (replay) Preview

[wellesbourne]

NOT BEEN ONLINE ALL WEEEK AND JUST CALMING DOWN.IM GLAD I WORKED AS THAT NIGHT I WAS ASHAMED OF EVERYTHING BLACKBURN ROVERS!!!!!

PLAYING A TEAM WITH ELEVEN CHANGES WAS SUICIDE AND ALL THOSE WHO DISGRACEFULLY WANTED US TO LOSE GOT THEIR WISH!!!! NO I DONT WANT US TO GO DOWN AND YES I WANTED TO WIN THE CUP...OOOOOOPS SORRY !!!!!

IF THESE NANCY PAMBY "SUPERSTARS" CANT HANDLE TWO GAMES IN A WEEK THEN FOOTBALL IS ON ITS ARSE BIG TIME AND SAM SHOULD PUT HIS HAND IN HIS AND THE DRESSING ROOM AND REFUND EVERY ROVERS FAN WHO WENT ON TUESDAY NIGHT BECAUSE HE HAS TAKEN THE P@@@ OUT OF THEM .THE FA CUP TRADITION ISNT ABOUT A RESERVES TEAM ITS ABOUT BLOOD .PASSION .GLORY.HISTORY.GUTS.PRIDE!!!!! NOT ABOUT OH WE MAY GET AN INJURY ,WE DONT CARE .I BET MY DAD AND GRANDAD ARE SPINNING IN THEIR GRAVES!!!!!!!

Nail hit head...................probably 917 people who have nagging doubts about putting their hard earned cash and time into the next trip after Tuesday as we were all well and truly mugged. And it is the lack of effort and pride in wearing the shirt that upsets me.

[Montfort]

I was very dissapointed with the result. My belief that we are going to get out of relegation trouble has started to waiver for the first time since Big Sam arrived. Need a win on Saturday - desperately.

( which is the sad icon ? )

[tony gale's mic]

NOT BEEN ONLINE ALL WEEEK AND JUST CALMING DOWN.IM GLAD I WORKED AS THAT NIGHT I WAS ASHAMED OF EVERYTHING BLACKBURN ROVERS!!!!!

PLAYING A TEAM WITH ELEVEN CHANGES WAS SUICIDE AND ALL THOSE WHO DISGRACEFULLY WANTED US TO LOSE GOT THEIR WISH!!!! NO I DONT WANT US TO GO DOWN AND YES I WANTED TO WIN THE CUP...OOOOOOPS SORRY !!!!!

IF THESE NANCY PAMBY "SUPERSTARS" CANT HANDLE TWO GAMES IN A WEEK THEN FOOTBALL IS ON ITS ARSE BIG TIME AND SAM SHOULD PUT HIS HAND IN HIS AND THE DRESSING ROOM AND REFUND EVERY ROVERS FAN WHO WENT ON TUESDAY NIGHT BECAUSE HE HAS TAKEN THE P@@@ OUT OF THEM .THE FA CUP TRADITION ISNT ABOUT A RESERVES TEAM ITS ABOUT BLOOD .PASSION .GLORY.HISTORY.GUTS.PRIDE!!!!! NOT ABOUT OH WE MAY GET AN INJURY ,WE DONT CARE .I BET MY DAD AND GRANDAD ARE SPINNING IN THEIR GRAVES!!!!!!!

Ridiculous post.

If Santa Cruz had got injured in a Rovers win, we'd be as good as down with a very tough home tie against Chelsea in the cup.

Even if we'd won, the players wouldn't have been in optimum condition for the Hull game. It's not about them not being able to handle two games in a week, its's about ensuring they're at 100% instead of being at 80% for what is an absolutely massive game. The risk of injury is just an additional factor.

I wanted us to go through but seeing as now we've got a free weekend as opposed to what would most likely have been a home defeat against Chelsea in the cup then I don't think it's such a bad outcome.

[blue phil]

Even if we'd won, the players wouldn't have been in optimum condition for the Hull game.

Poor lambs ........it's such a hard life for them

[tony gale's mic]

Poor lambs ........it's such a hard life for them

You do miss the point quite spectcularly in almost every reply you make.

What's so hard to understand about the fact that a player's physical condition will be better if they hadn't been playing a game in mid week?

It's not about being humane, I'm sure almost all of the squad will have played 3 games in 8 days many, many times in their career. It's about ensuring our best players are at their peak fitness levels and injury free when they play a much more important game against Hull.

[blue phil]

I'm not missing any point - only disagreeing about the emphasis you seem to put on physical fitness .

I didn't go against Coventry (thankfully) but from all reports the problems were more of a mental nature than physical . Most of the team who played should have been as fresh as daisies ; instead they proved to be as fragile as daisies .

We had a decent performance against Utd . I believe we should have followed that up with a more or less unchanged team and beaten Coventry .

Winning's a good habit . A defeat , though , is still a defeat - even if our best players are sleeping on the bench because they might ...just might ...get tired or pick up an injury by actually plying their trade .

[tony gale's mic]

I'm not missing any point - only disagreeing about the emphasis you seem to put on physical fitness .

I didn't go against Coventry (thankfully) but from all reports the problems were more of a mental nature than physical . Most of the team who played should have been as fresh as daisies ; instead they proved to be as fragile as daisies .

We had a decent performance against Utd . I believe we should have followed that up with a more or less unchanged team and beaten Coventry .

Winning's a good habit . A defeat , though , is still a defeat - even if our best players are sleeping on the bench because they might ...just might ...get tired or pick up an injury by actually plying their trade .

Well personally I'd choose to follow the opinions of the countless managers who have put weakened sides out for fixtures like this over your assertions that playing our strongest side would've been the best course of action.

I would've thought their combined hundreds of years of experience of top level management would probably just about trump your own.

[Eddie]

Sometimes conventional wisdom isn't the best course of action.

[nowthen]

I agree. Fair enough if you're in 3 or 4 competitions, resting players is probably a must but we're not. Reading did the same in the FA cup last year and that didn't work- as did the the other teams that went down.

But it's been said the players we played should have been good enough, I felt like they should have been made to come over and apologise to everyone of us who went on Tuesday purely for the lack of effort shown.

[cn174]

I agree. Fair enough if you're in 3 or 4 competitions, resting players is probably a must but we're not. Reading did the same in the FA cup last year and that didn't work- as did the the other teams that went down.

But it's been said the players we played should have been good enough, I felt like they should have been made come over and apologised to everyone us who went on Tuesday purely for the fact of effort shown.

Most of them didn't bother to come over at all, but there you go.

I can see both sides of the argument for resting or not resting players, but I just think that in a lot of cases it doesn't have the desired effect of making the non-playing players more refreshed and making the team play better in the next game. I think this is especially if the cup game is a loss - no matter which players are playing, a loss creates negativity around the place.

[Amo]

I think Boro showed today that there is no substitute for form and momentum. And our cup heroics in 2002 helped push us on for the remainder of the season.

[thenodrog]

Poor lambs ........it's such a hard life for them

You do miss the point quite spectcularly in almost every reply you make.

What's so hard to understand about the fact that a player's physical condition will be better if they hadn't been playing a game in mid week?

It's nothing to do with fitness. The issue is in keeping our 'big' players free from injury by playing in unimportant games.

[tony gale's mic]

It's nothing to do with fitness. The issue is in keeping our 'big' players free from injury by playing in unimportant games.

I daresay it's both. Which is why I mentioned later on in that post about it being needed to keep our players injury free. Funny you deleted that bit from the quote....

[thenodrog]

I daresay it's both. Which is why I mentioned later on in that post about it being needed to keep our players injury free. Funny you deleted that bit from the quote....

I did that cos u two were sqabbling over fitness when injury avoidance is paramount. Funny but you seem somewhat prickly all of a sudden tgm.

[broadsword]

Well personally I'd choose to follow the opinions of the countless managers who have put weakened sides out for fixtures like this over your assertions that playing our strongest side would've been the best course of action.

I would've thought their combined hundreds of years of experience of top level management would probably just about trump your own.

Nonsense.

What the hell have players like Santa Cruz been doing this week then instead of turning over Coventry? Going through the motions in training I guess.

For someone who's qualifying to be a doctor I'd have expected a more substantive argument in favour of a mid-week rest for improved physical condition, than just a blase, vague "Well, lots of other managers have done it" anecdotal argument.

It's twaddle, they should have a pre-season to develop the work capacity and ability to recover to handle this. I also think it's more mental than anything else. If they don't think they can handle, then they won't. And if they're overpaid, then you can see that happening.

You can't go wrapping players in cotton wool by not playing them to avoid injury. There's been plenty of injuries on the training ground over the years.

If you want a player to stay free of injury then keeping them fit is the best way to do that.

Now we are going to Hull on the back of a loss away to Coventry. It is hardly ideal.

[tony gale's mic]

Nonsense.

What the hell have players like Santa Cruz been doing this week then instead of turning over Coventry? Going through the motions in training I guess.

For someone who's qualifying to be a doctor I'd have expected a more substantive argument in favour of a mid-week rest for improved physical condition, than just a blase, vague "Well, lots of other managers have done it" anecdotal argument.

It's twaddle, they should have a pre-season to develop the work capacity and ability to recover to handle this. I also think it's more mental than anything else. If they don't think they can handle, then they won't. And if they're overpaid, then you can see that happening.

You can't go wrapping players in cotton wool by not playing them to avoid injury. There's been plenty of injuries on the training ground over the years.

If you want a player to stay free of injury then keeping them fit is the best way to do that.

Now we are going to Hull on the back of a loss away to Coventry. It is hardly ideal.

Christ, everyone on this board seems obsessed with my future profession..I think I mentioned it a maximum of two times.

Usually when it comes to arguing a managers actions, the argument would be redundant since every manager does selections and tactics differently. But in this case, this is something almost every manager does when faced in a similar situation. My argument is that putting the player in a match situation where he's training more intensively in the runup to it and coming up against much harder challenges, pushing himself more etc is far more likely to injure him than to rest him.

But that's all it is, my opinion. As you rightly pointed out, I'm going to be a doctor, not a football coach/manager. I've never coached in my life. I'm guessing by sheer law of averages you haven't either. Or, if you have, you haven't done it to anywhere near the levels that these players have.

So yes, it is a perfectly fair comment to say that since the overwhelming majority of experienced managers do a similar thing to what Sam did on Tuesday, there must be a fair bit more to their opinions than yours, since they actually work on the training pitch with professionals day in, day out.

I did that cos u two were sqabbling over fitness when injury avoidance is paramount. Funny but you seem somewhat prickly all of a sudden tgm.

Fitness and injury are very much intertwined.

[broadsword]

My argument is that putting the player in a match situation where he's training more intensively in the runup to it and coming up against much harder challenges, pushing himself more etc is far more likely to injure him than to rest him.

I'm not obsessed with your future profession, because this is teh first time I've mentioned it, so stick that in your stethoscope and smoke it.

You tell me that I can't be more knowledgable than managers since I don't have their experience, yet you then explain their justification to me, after saying you can't know anything about it because you've never been a manager. make your pigging mind up.

No, I've never been a manager, so what? I know a bit about fitness. Just because resting players has become en vogue, doesn't mean it's the correct thing to do.

[tony gale's mic]

I'm not obsessed with your future profession, because this is teh first time I've mentioned it, so stick that in your stethoscope and smoke it.

You tell me that I can't be more knowledgable than managers since I don't have their experience, yet you then explain their justification to me, after saying you can't know anything about it because you've never been a manager. make your pigging mind up.

No, I've never been a manager, so what? I know a bit about fitness. Just because resting players has become en vogue, doesn't mean it's the correct thing to do.

No but people on here seem to bring it up a lot in the most irrelevant of situations.

My post was fairly clear - I gave my opinion based on what I know. Ultimately though the fact that almost all of those with far more knowledge and experience than you or me are doing this speaks more volumes than either your opinions or mine. I really hope I don't have to break down all of my posts like this...

I don't even think it's an "en vogue" thing. The older and the younger managers are doing it, and there's various reasons at play I would imagine...bigger squads which allows managers to do it being one.

Well done on knowing a bit about fitness. Maybe it's more than I know, I can't claim to know relatively huge amounts on it. But I can be fairly sure that the managers who make these decisions you so criticise and the coaches they work with know far more about fitness than yourself. If it was just Sam doing it, even if it was just half the managers doing things like this, then it'd be a different story. But you only need to look at events this week to know it it's the vast majority.

[broadsword]

So all you have to offer then is: "Everyone does it, it must be right then".

Great, well, thanks for that. And because someone might have more bits of paper than me, obviously I shouldn't say anything.

They earn too much money, and managers run scared of upsetting them.

[Ossydave]

The 'resting' thing is nothing to do with players getting tired for Gods sake.

Anyone who plays football at a decent level will tell you it has a negative effect missing a game, for a 'rest'

Its about preventing injuries, simple as.

[tony gale's mic]

So all you have to offer then is: "Everyone does it, it must be right then".

Great, well, thanks for that. And because someone might have more bits of paper than me, obviously I shouldn't say anything.

They earn too much money, and managers run scared of upsetting them.

More bits of paper....decades of experience...that's all that separates you knowing "a bit about fitness" and the likes of Alex Ferguson, Martin O'Neill, Sam Allardyce and god knows how many others deciding to rest their players. I don't recall saying you shouldn't say anything. I simply said in my original post that their years of experience makes their opinions far more valuable, and that the fact that almost all of these managers follow a similar procedure in times like this speaks volumes. Why is that so difficult to take in?

They do earn too much money but then that's a completely different argument altogether.

[broadsword]

That's too risk averse to me. You can't wrap them in cotton wool.

Robinson has most appearances this season with 29, we're almost in March. Players at top clubs make upwards of 60 appearances a season, so I think "resting" some players on Tuesday was twaddle.

[American]

More bits of paper....decades of experience...that's all that separates you knowing "a bit about fitness" and the likes of Alex Ferguson, Martin O'Neill, Sam Allardyce and god knows how many others deciding to rest their players. I don't recall saying you shouldn't say anything. I simply said in my original post that their years of experience makes their opinions far more valuable, and that the fact that almost all of these managers follow a similar procedure in times like this speaks volumes. Why is that so difficult to take in?

And yet we've seen many managers get sent down because of this. When is the last time a team dropped and you thought "if only they hadn't had that cup run, they might have stayed up"?

About the only example I can think of where a team did well because of a light workload is when Spurs finished 5th after having played the least number of matches possible for the season.

[ABBEY]

Ridiculous post.

If Santa Cruz had got injured in a Rovers win, we'd be as good as down with a very tough home tie against Chelsea in the cup.

Even if we'd won, the players wouldn't have been in optimum condition for the Hull game. It's not about them not being able to handle two games in a week, its's about ensuring they're at 100% instead of being at 80% for what is an absolutely massive game. The risk of injury is just an additional factor.

I wanted us to go through but seeing as now we've got a free weekend as opposed to what would most likely have been a home defeat against Chelsea in the cup then I don't think it's such a bad outcome.

so we play a reserve side just for poor little santa.

optimum condition hahahahaha PROFFESIONAL ATHELETES CAN RECOVER WITH 5 DAYS WITHOUT A GAME FFS.

risk of injury...its part of footy pal and pro sport,players get injured and you deal with it.

you wanted us to go thru ? but say we would get beat off chelsea? why? are we not allowed to compete with the big boys(look at (with baited breath) the dingles.It was the ONLY chance left of siverware.

Ridiculous post and i dont give a flying :::::: what your proffesion is.

The 'resting' thing is nothing to do with players getting tired for Gods sake.

Anyone who plays football at a decent level will tell you it has a negative effect missing a game, for a 'rest'

Its about preventing injuries, simple as.

I did sport at the highest level and we used to go in comps the week before internationals and national championships.If you got injured you took it in your stride and got on with life.

the new rovers kit

[thenodrog]

optimum condition hahahahaha PROFFESIONAL ATHELETES CAN RECOVER WITH 5 DAYS WITHOUT A GAME FFS.

risk of injury...its part of footy pal and pro sport,players get injured and you deal with it.

1. Bert can't recover in 5 days Abbey.

2. Nail on head. It is PRO sport. The term 'Professional' in this context is to play sport for financial gain or reward. Playing in the Premier League ensures about 40m+ coming into the club. Dropping down to the championship ensures diddly squat even if we managed to win the FA cup never mind getting past Chelsea and a semi final first.

Nothing is guaranteed either way at this moment in time but in our situation it has to be a head over heart decision.