FA Cup: Why We Need To Put Put A Full Strength Team Out

It's possible spirits haven't been higher in the better part of the last decade than right now. In the last 6 games we have won all 6. We've conceded a solitary goal and scored 11. This form in a season where we sit 2nd in the league and a higher points tally in 16 games than that of all last season.

This form is a precious thing. We've already had a blip this season when we failed to win in 7 games; a run of form that started from a couple of innocuous draws. This is what worries me. The players and staff have recently spoken how they feel they're earning back the fans love and admiration and it'd be a shame to risk that to give a couple of kids and Dorian Dervite a run out.

The patterns we've seen in our form this year allude to us being a streaky team. We rarely have isolated wins, draws or losses, so why risk letting a cup upset spill out in to the league? We could quickly fins ourselves dropping a couple of games and dropping like a rock in a very competitive leading pack.

Why am I so worried we'd drop points to lower league opposition? Well Phil Parkinson has mentioned a couple of times that he thinks the winning form of late has come from having a settled team selection. Moving players around just to give others some minutes shouldn't be paramount over team cohesion. Another point is we do not have a big squad by any stretch of the imagination, especially when you consider the injuries. It has to be asked if we can maintain a good standard of football and cohesion if we wanted to make wholesale changes? I don't think so.

There is also the other potent factor being Grimsby being proper up for this. They're only in the league below us these days but it would be quite a scalp for the Football League new boys. I don't want to see rusty players and inexperienced youth players hit with both barrels when I know the current first XI could cope.

I'm not adverse to giving 1 or 2 youth players a spot on the bench and a chance to prove themselves if the game looks safe, but we shouldn't be risking our form for any reason.