Yet another disapointment today but you win some and you lose some. Those who are putting all the blame on the manager will have to wake up and smell the fresh air.
We do not have many experienced and quality players to come off the bench that can play for us in all the FA Cup and Carling Cup games. Unlike Chelsea we don't have two good players for every position. FA Cup is the oldest cup in the world however it's not important as nearly as much staying in the top four in the Premiership and in the Champions League.
Now before many of you get on my back, the fact of the matter is if we had won today and won the FA cup at the end but not finished in the top four meaning that we didn't qualify for the Champions League, would class player be willing to sign with us? What will a class player be looking at? The club being in the Champions League or winning the FA cup? As much as the FA Cup is important in the UK, it is not as important in Europe to players that we could bring to this club.
We simply couldn't not survive in all four competions without getting one of our key players injured. God forbid if we had played our starting 11 and some of them got injured. The pitch was awful and we could had easily lost an important player today. But with our luck and injuries we simply would had fallen sooner or later. Benitez knows what the FA cup means to this club but the Champions League brings money and with money the club can buy good players.
Benitez is still the man for the job, I believe he can bring glory to this club but it is not going to happen over night. There is no shortcut to it, we will just have to continue to wait. When Wenger came to Arsenal he didn't bring them trophies ASAP, it took time and this time its no exception.
Now we face Southampton next. It is important for us to win and get on a run. We need our players to gain their confidence and get on with it. We have good enough squad to win the upcoming five fixtures. We can still finish in the top four. Theres no time to dwell on our misfortunes so we will have to move on.
I don't know whether Nunez will be able to play as he got a red card in today's fixture but here's the starting 11 I would use:
Dudek
Finnan Carragher Hyypia Troare
Pongolle Gerrard Hamann Riise
Morientes Baros