This will sound like such a fan boy comment as I've literally only seen him play for 15 minutes but Real's Alvaro Morata is a player we should definitely be in for. Looks like he could be quality. Obviously very unlikely we could get him but we should at least try.
I doubt we could get him, even if we could, I think the price might be a bit strange.
I have no clue how good he is, he came on and scored with his first touch when I last saw him and he scored with his first touch today. I've no clue how well he can hold the ball up or how good he is at a bunch of other things. The problem is, Real Madrid will want a young striker to sit on their bench next season. It's easier to keep a young guy happy by saying "one day you'll be first choice for Real Madrid" than it will be to keep their older strikers happy. If they get Falcao and keep Benzema, it'll be hard for them to recruit someone to be third choice (this assumes Huguain leaves).
He's someone I'd like to see more of, but it's difficult to find games that Real Madrid can give their young players. (Although their B team has a striker that looks pretty good too.)
Speaking of that game though, that ref was awful and Rayo's level of cheating was insane. La Liga may have the best players in the world and the best teams in the world but the league itself is such a joke at times.
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Swansea Liverpool... That first penalty, what the hell happened there?
Swansea can rest whoever they want. Liverpool and Swansea are the two competing for the league position under the people competing for CL places... Swansea get Europa League football if they beat Bradford... Seeing Borini out for the rest of the season after coming on for hardly any time is something that backs up the decision to rest people.
It only sucks because Liverpool can now say they won against a top 10 team.
When United have officially won the league, they usually rest their main players for 3 games or so.
This really doesn't affect us at all. If Liverpool get CL football, it means a bunch of clubs above them have to lose a ton of games and Liverpool have to win a ton of games, that won't happen. If Liverpool finish above us, then we finish 7th instead of 6th.
Everton rest players before their cup ties every year usually. (A couple recently for sure, one was a derby they sent out a weakened team for.)
Every club rests players, United would have rested a bunch before Everton had City not lost the day before. Swansea have a small squad, so they surely should have more of a right to obviously rest players like they did tonight, as for most of the season they've had to use their first choice players. They don't have the ability to put out a 2nd team with players like our 2nd choice, Man United, City or Chelsea's 2nd choice players. Man United can probably put out a 3rd team with more well known players than Swansea's 2nd team.
If Swansea are in a position in the league where they can risk losing a game due to their team selection but not worry about the loss of 3 points, then well done to them. It is not their responsibility to care about other teams and as I said earlier, they are the ones competing with Liverpool over that league position anyway.
They won't be able to forgive themselves if they lose to Bradford in their first ever major final. Bradford are a team that beat Arsenal and other PL clubs. We saw again with the F.A Cup that PL clubs can't just expect lower division sides to roll over for them... Let alone at Wembley.
Say we were in the CL final against some Scandinavian version of Bradford, say we assured of 3rd in the PL, too far from 2nd to catch them but too far from 4th to be caught... It's debatable whether the CL means as much to us as the League Cup means to Swansea. (Winning it, anyway.) In that situation, we'd never ever forgive ourselves if we lost the CL final against significantly weaker opponents. If our last games were against Manchester X to decide the title, Reading to decide Relegation and Everton to decide the Europa league places, we wouldn't give a fudge if we put out our under 15 team as long as we won the CL.
So Swansea can rest whoever the hell they like. I think they probably played more of their first team than they had to.