[wba_1996]

I think AI really did want to get through against Bournemouth, in all honesty the quality of players we had on the pitch should have dispatched Bournemouth reserves, he also brought Saido and Sess on which he wouldn't have done if he was happy to go out.

The reason we lost and were so abject was the ridiculous midfield 3 he picked, it actually still astonishes me now, two very defensive midfielders (both more suited to CB than any sort of advanced midfield role) and Mulumbu who is box-to-box at best and for whom passing is his weakest aspect. With only Blanco as a creative midfielder and with no pace or width we became a non-entity going forward and has loads of space wide of our midfield trio. Start Gardner instead of Baird and we win that match and nobody talks about the weakened team.

[WBA-Josh]

I understand the reasoning behind coaches playing a different team in cup matches because it keeps the whole squad fresh. Our problem against Bournemouth was the team and formation that AI picked.

I am currently watching the Lazio vs Cagliari Serie A match and every team in Italy has 12 subs on the bench in every league match. This keeps every player in the squad fresh because even the players who wouldn't normally make a 7 man bench will still get decent game time when they're needed off the bench. This will help the cup competitions because when teams play a "weakened team", the players who are chosen have already had decent game time. That is a big difference to what happens now when some players don't play for weeks or months on end and then they have to play in a cup game without the desired match sharpness that the normal starting 11 and 7 man bench will have.

Do you guys think that would help at all?

[bomberbrown1968]

Josh, you're talking to a man who was brought up on one substitute and the team that played on a Saturday at 3 o'clock played a cup game on a Wednesday that went to extra time and then turned out on a Saturday 3 o'clock kick off again all on rain soaked mudbaths in the middle of January - 12 substitutes pffft