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Another cup failure as Vale march on — full match report
at 12:54:35

Good report Neil!

I was more disappointed with the team selection than the ultimate result.

It seems to me to be pretty poor psychology to pick a weakened team for these sorts of games, especially coming off the back of a 4-0 victory (which flattered us, but nevertheless was a good morale boost). It depresses the fans, and they end up getting on the back of new players who aren't yet settled, and quite possibly don't deserve the stick. Before you know it you've got a few idiots in the crowd who've convinced themselves that someone is rubbish, and that rubs off onto the player, turning it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Surely at this point in the season it's better to maintain the momentum and pick your strongest team, to give them more pitch time together and sharpen them up? If they can't cope with an extra game now, we're going to be in big trouble in the spring!

On the subject of Taraabt, apparently he played for Morocco last night, so that explains that one. Not sure why we couldn't have played Hill and Faurlin though. We do clearly need someone creative when Taraabt is missing. In the absence of anyone else, I would have liked to see Ephraim played in that role, instead of out wide. He's ok there when he's got someone like Taraabt to come to him and play short quick passes to, but with nobody to spark off he's wasted on the wings.

I also think that if we are going to go with a weakened team, we might as well have gone the whole hog and started with all the youngsters. When they were playing together at the end of the game, they were mostly about bustle rather than guile, but they did at least look like they had some understanding with each other. You could see glances passed between Germain, Rose and Oastler which vaguely hinted at an understanding borne of actually playing lots of games together.

If you start with the kids and it all goes a bit pear shaped, at least you have the psychological boost of being able to bring on more senior players.

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samdeane

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