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Should West Ham focus on cup glory?

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FA Youth CupOn Wednesday West Ham play Tottenham Hotspur in the Capital One Cup. With a number of big games coming up in the Premier League against Arsenal and Manchester United, the question must be asked: should we play some of the West Ham youngsters or should we have a crack and throw our experienced players at it?”

Personally I don’t see the cup as important, especially seeing as we are 17th on the ladder with a bunch of big games coming up. The prize for the cup is £100,000, hardy worth the risk of losing a player to injury or suspension. Right now our focus should remain on staying up not winning the cup. Wigan Athletic last year focused on the FA Cup and sure they won it, but are now in the Championship and might not get back up.

There are some good youngsters in the academy and they could do with a call up to see what they’re made of. As the saying goes “throw them in the deep end and see if they can swim.”

The first player that should get a crack is Elliott Lee. With the West Ham forward line achieving little and with the good reviews that have been coming through, why not give him a go? Lee has been described as a “prolific goal-getter who will hope to translate his form at junior levels into first-team goals” on the club website. So let’s see what he can do, he might surprise us and with the forward line the way it is he can hardly do much worse.

The other player is Leo Chambers. Leo has done well when he has played and I feel that some of our defenders could do with a rest to prepare for Manchester United a few days later. Chambers is one of the best players we have at youth level, the only way to get him some experience in the big league is to play him in games like this.

Dylan Tombides is the other player that deserves a shot. He is a young 19-year-old striker from my hometown of Perth. Dylan got struck down with cancer at the age of 17, but has made a recovery and is now fully fit. Nick Haycock has been full of praise for the youngster and has said he deserves a opportunity.

There is however the other side to the coin. What happens if we get smashed, it would be very embarrassing if we lost by a cricket score. I agree that losing to Tottenham would be a nightmare; they are, after all, the team I dislike the most.

Tottenham will have a point to prove after we humiliated them 3-0 (and boy wasn’t that good.) and after the crushing that Liverpool gave them on Sunday.

The question is do we try to go for cup glory or do we rest key players, give the youngsters a crack and see if they can take the next step up. Personally I think we rest Modibo Maiga, James Collins and Guy Demel, and replace them with Lee, Chambers and Tombides.

COYI

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3 comments

  • JB says:

    I am not optomistic of victories against Man Utd & Arsenal, so I will go completely contrary to your thoughts Shane and say “That the League Cup is something that West Ham have never won” I still remember the semi final 2nd leg in 1972, when West Ham played Stoke. I was standing in the North Bank, right behind the goal, when we won a penalty 5 mins from the end of extra time. Geoff Hurst took it, and Gordon Banks made a blinder of a save from Geoff’s thunderbolt of a kick, and West ham would’ve gone to Wembley had Geoff scored, and we’d have probably have won it, as Stoke did go on to do so that year. The frustration of never having won this Cup lingers. As I say, I am not, & I cannot say that many other people would be optomistic of us winning at Old Trafford or against Arsenal, so I reckon we should really go for it and field our strongest possible team. Spurs are managerless & are in crisis right now, and we all know the score of our last visit to the lane. If West Ham field a weakened team & lose, they will always be left wondering if this would have been our year had we not gone for it. PLUS a Europa League position is up for grabs. Go for it West Ham. We can still recover if we get bad results from the next 2 Premier League games. If we really go for it & lose, then we can never say we didn’t give it our best shot. West Ham fans, myself included are hungry for some success. It will have been a long 34 years, as of next year, since we won our last trophy. That’s a long long time!!!

  • Stu says:

    Can i guess your source for the £100,000 is football manager?

    The real prize is europe.

  • beckton Geoff says:

    Europe ! Europe !! Europe !!! , go for it West ham.

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