OPINION
Manuel Pellegrini must tread carefully when it comes to gambling with his team selection for Tuesday night’s League Cup clash with AFC Wimbledon as it could backfire.
The experienced Hammers boss has not guided his side to a victory in a competitive game so far and Tuesday’s night opponents will be dreaming of causing a cup upset and will go all out to get victory.
The Wombles may be ranked lower than the Hammers due to being in League One rather than the Premier League but that doesn’t mean they’re not capable of heaping misery on Pellegrini’s side by shockingly eliminating them on Tuesday.
The Hammers manager previously revealed that he is planning to make changes to the side he deployed against Arsenal on Saturday.
“My team selection at AFC Wimbledon is not dependent on Saturday’s result,” said Pellegrini, as quoted by the club’s official website.
“We have to play in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday and we are going to make changes because we have a squad and we must be able to play the complete year, and not just have a team that plays all the games, it isn’t dependent on Saturday’s result.”
Given that the majority of his first-choice options haven’t been knocking it out of the park so far this season then if he brings in too many players from the fringes of his squad, they may not necessarily get the job done against The Dons.
ExWHUemployee, a club insider, shared on Twitter that Pellegrini has likely been told to take cup competitions seriously by the board which means they won’t take too kindly to being eliminated at such an early stage if AFC Wimbledon cause a cup upset.
Seriously I would say and I think he has been told to https://t.co/jXOdbBYYFJ
— ExWHUEmployee (@ExWHUEmployee) August 27, 2018
While the board will just be furious at the thought of the Hammers going out, if Pellegrini gambles too much with his selection and that contributes to their exit then they will no doubt be even more outraged.
This means that Pellegrini must tread carefully when opting to gamble with his team selection for the clash against AFC Wimbledon by choosing players who aren’t seen as first-choice as if they fail to get the job done then it will be him who will risk the board’s fury.
