Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow Demon UK
Were people criticising Fergie for playing Beckham, Scholes, Butt, Giggs, Neville etc when they were young and coming up from the reserves? He played a team that was good enough to win yesterday and nearly did if it wasn't for a poor refereeing decision, i fail to see how thats disrespectful, fielding a team thats played in most rounds of the FA cup and won the League cup. If squad rotation and giving young players a chance is disrespectful and breaks the rules so be it, but in my opinion it isn't.
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I'm sorry, but the FA make the rules of the FA cup not Ferguson, nor yourself. Its in black and white:
Quote:
15. PROVISIONS CONCERNING PLAYERS
(a) Each team participating in a match shall represent the full available strength of each
competing Club.
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http://www.thefa.com/~/media/1E9E2DE...up%20Rules.pdf
So what you think is or isn't disrespectful is completely irrelevant. Playing two youths when you have a £30m striker on the bench (not even naming Rooney or Ronaldo), is quite obviously a breach of that law.
The fact that he criticised Redknapp for wanting to do the same thing as Ferguson actually did just re-enforces the fact that he's a hypocrite. Redknapp wanted to prevent his players from aggravating existing injuries from the prior game when we were in a relegation battle. That is a far more pressing reason than Ferguson not liking the pitch. Yet still Ferguson dived behind the rule book when it suited him. He forced Redknapp to play an unfit squad just so he can't be seen to be breaching the rule.
As for your claim about youth players, well that's what the Premier League, League Cup, reserve games, etc is for. If Man Utd don't want to abide by the rules they should just quit the FA Cup for good. They've done it before after all.