The problem is that they really didn't get a rest.Team selection tonight obviously made with knowledge of the current state of the squad and what Poch believes is necessary to go out and win our Premier League matches coming up. I trust he rested players because they needed it. Those asking why he didn't throw the competition earlier... This is the state of the squad and our needs right now, not two weeks ago or three months ago or whenever.
Fairly close to the mark, but i cannot for one minute defend him for starting Carroll and Mason together in the middle - rest players by all means, but not all of them at the same time - Bentaleb, granted isn't having the best of seasons but had to start ahead of one of those two i mention.
Which is the point of playing your stronger teams early in the competition. This match shows us the difference between Europa teams and CL teams.Lazio losing, good news for FC Coefficient.
Agree - Toby is first class, as are Harry, Verts and Hugo. These are all players who should be reasonably expecting to win a few honours during their careers but after tonight I would expect them all to be questioning whether that will ever happen after the team selection tonight. Tonight was a disgrace and the club have questions to answer about throwing the tie. I'd say there will be plenty of refund requests or no shows for the second leg now and I would expect a statement on the OS at the very least. Poch got this very wrong tonight.Toby has been excellent, had a lot to do tonight.
Opportunities to play different players giving game time to the likes of Onomah against good teams but with not much riding on it.the only gripe i have with it is why bother playing the likes of dembele, kane and dier to get this far, would have been better to go out in the group stage than key players having played so many games to this point, we don't have the squad to challenge on more than 1 front, the fringe players are very average at best
A timely reminder that this team is still a work in progress and that Pochettino is still learning.
Yep. I'm really worried about this villa game now. It's not going to be as easy as some people think. No premier league game ever is!
Thing is Poch did say he would rotate - he's been banging on about it on in all his pressers since the weekend.
Contrary to what many people think
Villa are not relegated yet... Only 8 points below the other 3
While others are over confident here
I see Dr Hotspur
I thought when Dembele lamela and Kane were on we looked a lot better and started to press and made a couple of chances.The problem is that they really didn't get a rest.
I couldn't watch the game here, but apparently Kane still looked tired and bringing him on was pointless. Lamela made no difference, and the same goes for Dembele. So the players that were supposed to be "rested" really didn't.
So what was the point of resting them? As far as I can see nothing. The team knows they're out of the one major competition they were left in and if we're all 100% honest we know we're not going to be the PL champions. It really was a worthless exercise.
Thing is Poch did say he would rotate - he's been banging on about it on in all his pressers since the weekend.
The problem is that they really didn't get a rest.
I couldn't watch the game here, but apparently Kane still looked tired and bringing him on was pointless. Lamela made no difference, and the same goes for Dembele. So the players that were supposed to "rested" really didn't.
So what was the point of resting them? As far as I can see nothing. The team knows they're out of the one major competition they were left in and if we're all 100% honest we know we're not going to be the PL champions. It really was an worthless exercise.
We won't catch Leicester. They won't drop more points than us. So yes, it's realistic to expect us not to win the league. As others have said, we should have had a massive memorable European night to remember tonight. This is easily as big as when we played inter in the CL or ac Milan. And we conceded the game before kick off. It's very demoralising and disappointing. Especially after two poor results in the league last week.