Weakened team?
It’s being rumoured that Slaven Bilic is going to field a weakened XI to face FC Astra in Romania on Thursday.
With our opening game of the Premier League season against Arsenal on Sunday coming just three days later, you can understand Bilic’s thoughts behind ensuring we’ve got a decent enough squad fit and ready to start our league campaign.
But surely, if we’re taking the Europa League seriously, we’ll be playing Thursday-Sunday schedules regularly throughout the season, which means this is the perfect opportunity for us to get the players used to such a schedule.
Yes we’ve got injuries and suspensions to contend with already, but you can’t expect the youngsters to go out to Romania and get us through to the next round of the qualifiers just so we can face Arsenal with a stronger team. The chances of us beating Arsenal are pretty slim anyway, so you’d be more inclined to go for it in both games to see exactly where the squad’s at?
Only time will tell, of course, but if it is weakened team on Thursday then there’ll be no excuse that makes sense. Even if we do win. Not for me, anyway.
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