The Cup that cheers?

I am not looking forward to either of the next two televised cup matches. Sunday's 1st round F A Cup encounter at Northwich Victoria is a massive potential banana skin. Yes there is a gulf in class and no, we have never lost to non-league opposition. However, in order to beat non-league opposition, you have to compete for 90 minutes for your footballing superiority to show through and you need players to stick their heads above the parapet. We haven't been competing in recent weeks for ninety minutes like we were at the start of the of season and the characters who were showing out early on all appear to have gone into their shells.

For the Northwich game I would change things around. Nicky Bailey should be brought into central midfield and told to press on when he can. I would leave Semedo to mop-up and break-up. Mooney must be given a start and we have to play 4-4-2 in this one. I don't want to see players being rested. Our chances of winning at Southampton look slim to me irrespective of what side we put out and that is the game I would sacrifice if Parky feels we need to rest players. The JPT offers us more potential than the F A Cup but a defeat to a non-league side could do irreparable damage to confidence and morale.

Assuming we beat Northwich, there might be a strong argument for putting the same winning side out at Southampton and really going for it. Two away wins would do wonders for the next home game but I suspect we may need to rest players for Southampton as the MK Dons game is twice as important. If we don't beat MK Dons we will drop out of the top two and it could be the start of real slide as this division sorts itself out and the challengers like Millwall, Norwich and Huddersfield have begun to put runs together.