The micro-blogging site, Twitter, can surprise you with the permutations people can come up with. I recently received a tweet from a colleague that featured Manchester United's-in-need-of-playing-time XI. Whereas it was a demonstration of the strength in depth at United, it was far from the depth in quality that the likes of Bayern Munich boast.
That line-up featured Lindegaard, Fabio, Buttner, Evans, Smalling, Zaha, Young, Kagawa, Anderson, Chicharito and Welbeck/Giggs.
A lot of those players will feature tonight in the League Cup tie against Norwich at home. It is expected that the manager shall rest a number of first team stars, but it is also expected that we should be able to put up a side that can win the match---in normal time. The League Cup is never top of United's priority least every season but given the possible permutations of this season, we might need to play it safe and keep in a couple of Cup competitions to keep our season vibrant and relevant.
Norwich are in the middle of a bad spell in the league but you just know that they might be desperate for such a game to turn their season. We've ejected Liverpool from the competition and so it will be disappointing to fall at the hands of the troubled Cannaries.
We have a large squad that could do with a run in the competition so as to get games and others to work on their fitness. It is imperative therefore that we progress to the last 8. Rather than treat it as a less important fixture, I'd like that the squad players put on a performance and use the tie as a means of showing the manager what they can do. Whether, they take the opportunity remains to be seen.
Labels: THE LEAGUE CUP
