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Welcome to the Bizarro puC
#1
Planet Bizarro abides by the Bizarro Code, "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!" The AF puC on htraE us determined run same way.

The justification for teams putting out weakened sides is now apparently that they have such big squads that otherwise fringe players would never get a game and never make a case for themselves.

Take a player like Tendayi Darikwa, formerly of my club Chesterfield, now marooned at Burnley. Most Saturdays now he doesn't even make the bench unless there are injuries, Lowton is definite first choice and when he was out Flanagan was drafted into the position. Come the Cup, there's Tendayi getting the full ninety, three games so far and they haven't conceded, so maybe he isn't a weakness, but Lowton is playing well.

Truth be told, if it weren't for Sky making Burnley one of the world's 100 richest clubs, they couldn't afford a Tendayi. He's not contributing. Lowton could play the Cup games. Tendayi, whose record suggests he needs to play every week, could be strengthening a decent Championship team and the Championship equivalent of Tendayi (and there are lots of them) might be improving Saturday afternoons for some Division One fans. AND Burnley would be forced to offer a youth player the sniff of a first team place that might be the making of him.

But the Bizarro puC naturally is committed to devaluing itself by letting players who can't get in the team play, so they can stay where they are (in no man's land) initiating the glacial movement of trapped players throughout the game, who could enliven the experience of fans in lower divisions ...... but will only get to do so when their current club has chewed them up sufficiently, spat them out and replaced them with other innocents, who imagine noitangats is miraculously going to turn into career development.

As Tendayi hopes Burnley's cup run continues to the final and he miraculously gets the nod over both Lowton and the fringe players he is already in competition with, Chesterfield is loaning a Burnley centre back aged 23, who would be nowhere near a game, or the bench. He's come through their academy and he's nowhere to go. All those years he spent at the club since boyhood have made him what? Little more than a cigarette card in their collection - he won't give up on the first team till they kick him out and a season or two's prevarication at Sky's expense, what's that to one of the world's pot 001?

And Burnley is one of the smaller clubs in the big time ...... and probably one of the relatively good guys. It is only because they are winning cup games with the team Sean Dyche selects that they prompt my question: why do teams need such big squads that they can draft in players even from beyond their extensive fringe and devalue a cup competition, which in the past was exciting for fans of clubs playing at every level?
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#2
Sad thing is Devon the Premier League teams are more interested in staying in the League and competing for the top four. The way its going the FA Cup could disappear or the Premier League teams will probably have an option to opt in or out in it.
CHESTERFIELD PREDICTION LEAGUE WINNER 2015/2016

More to Football than the Premier League and SKY
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#3
Yes Matt, they want to stay in the Premier League for the money and that same money allows them to have big squads including several players they have no intention of using except to play in cups, in order to rest first choice players for the main task of staying with the money.

The Cup I think is compulsory anyway ....... so teams need to lose out if they are happy to lose in it. So instead of all Premier and Championship clubs getting byes to Round Three ....... it should be the 44 best performing sides in the last five years of the FA Cup which have that honour. So a Premier League team that traditionally loses early in the Cup would risk playing two extra rounds. Similarly as lower league teams also field weakened teams sometimes, they would be considered alongside the National League sides which don't enter the Cup until the final qualifying round and it would be the 24 worst performers of that lot that would start in the qualifying ...........

I realise this would mess up fixtures a bit BUT that in itself would ensure teams at least tried to perform to their own ability level. Much as Lincoln beating Brighton was wonderful it wasn't like the old days of Hereford doing for Newcastle because Brighton didn't field anything like their full team. The new Ronnie Radford thus is cheated of becoming a Ronnie Radford and the fans are cheated of an authentically great memory because their rivals can always chant " Beat Brighton Reserves!" at them.
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#4
The winner and runner up should be the only two teams who get byes to the 3rd round. The rest should in my opinion all start in the first round. Sad thing is domestic cups to the Premier League teams aren't important anymore its all about the Premier League and getting into Europe. There was a time that the FA Cup used to be the most important trophy in English football because it meant the winners were the best team in the whole of English football now whoever wins the Premier League is classed as the best team in the whole of English football and partly the media are the problem because they've built up this monster.

I also think foreign managers/owners and players they don't seem to grasp what the FA Cup is about. The only one who seemed to understand it was Mancini when he was at City.

Also interestingly the BBC wanted to televise Lincoln City vs Brighton but the FA said no and told them to televise Manchester United vs Wigan. I know which match I would have wanted to watch and a lot of other football fans would want to watch as well.
CHESTERFIELD PREDICTION LEAGUE WINNER 2015/2016

More to Football than the Premier League and SKY
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#5
My other suggestion to bring the cup to life would be to leave the structure alone but award bonus points for the league. From Round One Proper there would be 2 bonus points for winning against a club from you own division, 1 bonus for winning against any club from a lower level and three bonus points for beating a a higher level club. And that would apply from National League (Conference) upwards to Premiership.

If Man City were to draw Chelsea tonight not only would we have a great game in prospect but Man City by knocking out Chelsea would open up the title race again .........

Under such a system would Brighton Reserves have played at Lincoln, or Newcastle's not-bovvereds at Oxford?
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#6
Yeah I don't think the Premier League would agree with that.

I think if the Premier League keep putting out weakened sides then they should face a points deduction or a fine just like L1 and L2 clubs have faced in the new format of the Football League Trophy. That way it will make them take the competition more seriously or give the winners a Champions League spot. The FA Cup already gives the winners a spot in the Europa League.
CHESTERFIELD PREDICTION LEAGUE WINNER 2015/2016

More to Football than the Premier League and SKY
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#7
Of course the Cup might flourish if major cup rounds were not followed two days later by important Premiership fixtures. In one competition or the other questionable results are almost bound to happen. Watford couldn't win at Millwall, but two days later, having transferred a striker to China for a king's ransom, they win at Arsenal (who'd scored five in the cup and rested a few players against a pub side from Southampton). Leicester battle to a draw at Derby in the cup, Burnley cruise through and rest players too against Bristol, should we then be surprised that Burnley come out on top against The Foxes? Fixture lists need sorting out!

If it were up to me I'd try and make replays unlikely. I'd have extra time in the original tie with a golden goal. AND, though most people would think me mad, I'd add to the excitement by not kicking off from the centre circle. Extra time would kick off with a corner for the home team. BUT if the tie reached the second half of extra time then that would kick off with a corner for the away team.
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#8
I agree the fixture list needs to be looked at. This season there has been a lot of midweek games especially on Wednesday's Thursday's and Friday's.
CHESTERFIELD PREDICTION LEAGUE WINNER 2015/2016

More to Football than the Premier League and SKY
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