Should FA Cup replays by scrapped?
“We’ve got a schedule which is just ridiculous, when you look at the schedule of the players and what they’re asked to do.
Of course a player can play every day if you want - they train every day and they can play every day - but they can’t play with the same intensity.
“We all understand that and we ask our top players, really, to play over 60 games a season and then expect them to perform in a tournament in June.
“I don’t think it’s possible and I think that’s why we come unstuck and we’re going through it at the moment.”
Then, as a small club we’re being asked to play seven games in 23 days, which is ridiculous, and after that we’ve got a two-week break.”
“Replays? I can understand why the FA are looking at it. I think you’ve got to win 17 games to win the Europa League, that’s nearly half a season.
“There’s far too many games so maybe it is the way forward not to have a replay. We’ve got a classic scenario. We’ve got a massive game again on Wednesday.
“We’re going to have 11 games in 30 days, which is an awful lot of football to play and keep everybody fit.
“I certainly don’t want a replay. Either we win or we get knocked out. We’ve got too many games.”
“I’d hate to see replays go, although the scheduling of them looks poor, for whatever reason that is. Between the FA and the Premier League, they need to sit down. Both managers (Palace and Cup opponents Tottenham) would prefer it to get this job done on Sunday.
“The game is not like that. The replay is in the rules, we’re going to have to deal with that when it turns up. Perhaps a little bit of foresight should have been there at the start of this season on the scheduling with some of these replays.”
“After such a long time, I have become very conservatively English. I am quite a bit nervous about changing the rules because I like them now, I believe as well it looks like we always get more money and want to play less games. That is a little bit of a contradiction.
“I am convinced all of the clubs can compete with the number of games we have to play, so there is no real need for me to change the rules. “
