We have continuing injuries to Ward, Sakho, Dann, Puncheon, RLC and Wickham and if the 'training for Brighton' image gallery is anything to go by a few first team players will be rested. On that basis I'd suggest we might look something like:

Speroni

Fosu-Mensah-------Reidewald-----Delaney---------Souare

Wan-Bissaka------Kirby------ Mutch ------- Lee

Sako ------------- Kaikai

Edited by Direwolf (06 Jan 2018 10.57am)

I'd go with:

Speroni

Kelly
Riedewaald
Delaney
Souare

Jimmy Mac (c)
Kirby

CYL (cam)
Kai Kai (rw)
Sako (lw)

Lumeka (cf)

Edited by laddo (06 Jan 2018 11.44am)

laddo

"People say, live fast, die young. I say live fast, die old. That's me, the non-conformist".
David Brent.

We shouldn't throw the game, as the FA Cup is a trophy we could actually win. By all means rest those that really need it, but I wouldn't put out an entire second string.

Barring injuries I would go with something like:

Have Zaha and Tekkers on the bench if we need them, although to be honest I think Zaha will start as he will want to play Brighton. Tomkins and Cabaye seem the most likely to pick up an injury, so I would hope they're rested.

If the Weed play Murray up front then I wouldn't be too concerned about giving Delaney a start - he knows Murray's game and lack of pace isn't such an issue. I just can't see us having any bite in attack if we rest Wilf and Townsend, which we surely must. Maybe keep them on the bench, kill the game for 75 minutes and then let Wilf have a go?

Mitigate risk by resting injury prone players and our long distance runners, but other then that I think we keep a performing team together as much as possible. We need our best players as sharp as possible and that for me offsets the risk of injury to top players, which I think is low enough given the recovery time between matches.

This post has been merged from a topic called 'FA cup' by Midlands Eagle

Something that had bothered me in the past is the lack of support from some fans around the FA cup.
I think we should field as strong a team as possible on Monday, after all the cup is the only thing we have a chance of winning this season (every season).