Last week I referred to the money-spinning FA Cup fourth round ties affecting our teams in this area and like most people I assumed that Bournemouth would be facing Liverpool.
With a weakened team, though, the Reds went out to Burnley in midweek and the Bournemouth chairman has criticised Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez - not for losing the tie, but for not taking it seriously enough with his team selection.
Of course, the Bournemouth chairman has a valid point. It wasn't the best team the Mersey team could have put out. Benitez either under-estimated Burnley, didn't grasp the true meaning of FA Cup ties or wasn't bothered if they didn't make progress. After all, they are still in the Carling Cup.
If any of these suppositions were right, it's yet another indication of our foreign coaches doing things differently.
It's not just the coaches, it's the number of foreign players, who, while they all would have seen our own cup final in whichever country they were from, probably never realised the intensity of these games when it comes to playing against lower league teams in one of the earlier rounds.
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