The Carling Cup

For me the 'Carling Cup' is a very bizarre tournament, in my opinion the way some teams, mainly premiership sides, pick a reserve line up is a very bad decision.  I can see some of the reasoning behind it though, it is still very early in the season some sides are trying to let the fringe players get some game time, some sides, Arsenal and Manchester United for example, give the youth players a chance to prove themselves which for the top end clubs is probably a good decision.

But for teams in the mid to lower end of the Premiership this cup represents one of only two chances they have of picking silverware up this season.  Teams like Stoke, Wolves, Fulham, Blackpool etc. stand a much better chance of winning the 'Carling Cup' than the 'FA Cup' due to the top side not picking full strength sides until the semi's or the final.  Yet they themselves field under strength sides against the lower diversion sides and inevitably a few of them end up losing there chance this year.  The fans of the club usually end up ticked off at there side losing to a lower league side and it generally lowers the moral of the club as a hole.
The unluckly losers this time round were Blackpool whoose season is known by all, including there fans to be one which will end in relegation, so why not go for the cup hard you never know what is going to happen in the cup, Portsmouth and Millwall exploits show us that, yet they decided to change 10 players from the loss to Arsenal and end up losing to MK Dons.  There also were near misses for Wolves, Stoke and Bolton who all droped large numbers of players from the weekend teams and all of them only just won, Wolves needing extra time.
Everton, Newcastle and Fulham play tonight and Birmingham on thursday no doubt that all of them will rest key players and maybe one of them will lose when this a major chance for them.