Why did Man Utd play a weakened team for the FA Cup final?

The likes of Wayne Rooney, Nani, Hernandez, Rafael, Evra, Vidic, De Gea, Ashley Young, Di Maria, Evans, Phil Jones wern't injured or suspended but they played a weakened squad and even played Pogba who came back on loan from Huddersfield that very day :confused:

I know you might say its still strong with the likes of Ferdinand, Carrick, Anderson, Fabio, Smalling, Park + Cleverly..BUT only Anderson has played over 20 games for them in that season and a few of them are transfer listed(Park, Carrick, Fabio) and the rest mainly played for the reserve team all season. It was also Will Keane's debut

Blacburns team was hardly full strength was it considering it was a cup final

Blacburns team was hardly full strength was it considering it was a cup final

True. I wasn't overly sure how strong their starting 11 was but noticed Robinson, Gamst Pederson and Yakubu didn't play. They have sold the likes of Samba/Hoillet

Is that first season? Seems strange they would sell Sambe and Hoillet in the first season. And no way would United have got Di Maria first season weither. Not in all the games ive played anyway. Was it defo FA Cup and not League Cup? Your SS doesnt give much away.

Is that first season? Seems strange they would sell Sambe and Hoillet in the first season. And no way would United have got Di Maria first season weither. Not in all the games ive played anyway. Was it defo FA Cup and not League Cup? Your SS doesnt give much away.

Apologies. Its the second season. Samba transferred to Man City in January of the second season for £22m. Hoillet went to Genoa for £8m in the same transfer window. Di Maria went to Man Utd for £17m in the summer before the start of the second season. And yes it was the FA Cup final.

Are United in the Champions League Final? Perhaps they weakened the team with that in mind. Not sure that would happen in real life, though.

Are United in the Champions League Final? Perhaps they weakened the team with that in mind. Not sure that would happen in real life, though.

Yes but..the FA Cup Final was on the 18th of May, the Champions League final is on the 1st of June. They had a Premiership game on the 26th of May.

Even if they were resting players 2 weeks before the final, the rested a new signing Milan Badelj who has played 47 times for them this season with an overall 7.50 rating but he's suspended for the Champions League final.

Was the title race coming down to their game on the 26th?

Isn't it a known bug that big teams play weakened teams in cup competitions, even in high-reputation cups and at later stages?

Did they play a weakened team all the way to the final? If they did you can understand why, but If not then something is wrong

I think there's a problem with the selection of the players to play in cups by the big teams. In my save FCPorto have been eliminated by a smaller team, in the Portuguese Cup, because they have played with 6-7 youths, some players that are coming from injuries and with only 3 players in the bench. They didnt have any game near that one, all 1st team players are available except 2 or 3 because of injuries. Even players of the 1st team that are not 1st choices didnt get selected.

I think this is maybe related with the importance that the AI gives to some cups.

After closer inspection all the big teams in the Premier League have put out weakened teams, in the FA Cup first season; Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Tottenham, Man Utd all failed to make it past the 4th round due to playing reserve teams and went out to lower league teams (bar Chelsea who were knocked out by Liverpool in the 3rd round).

Man Utd pretty much played a reserve team all the way to the final in the second season. Just seems very odd. They were going for the treble and in the end won nothing..Bad way for Fergie to leave. Does the AI not take the FA Cup seriously then? :confused:

Is this a bug? In my FM10 save, the FA Cup was always taken seriously by the teams. I watch the FA Cup matches even when my team isn't involved. I would watch the A.I. play itself. In those matches, the teams would put out their best 11. Because of this, the FA Cup final would be between the top 5 of the Premier League squads. The League Cup, however, wasnt taken seriously. I noticed that teams would usually rotate their reserves in those matches. It would be very disappointing if the FA Cup isn't being taken seriously anymore. I'll have to monitor to see what happens in my new FM12 save.

Isn't it a known bug that big teams play weakened teams in cup competitions, even in high-reputation cups and at later stages?

I wish teams would go with weaker squads against me in cup competitions so I could play more youngsters....

After closer inspection all the big teams in the Premier League have put out weakened teams, in the FA Cup first season; Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Tottenham, Man Utd all failed to make it past the 4th round due to playing reserve teams and went out to lower league teams (bar Chelsea who were knocked out by Liverpool in the 3rd round).

Man Utd pretty much played a reserve team all the way to the final in the second season. Just seems very odd. They were going for the treble and in the end won nothing..Bad way for Fergie to leave. Does the AI not take the FA Cup seriously then? :confused:

Certainly sounds like a bug.

It would appear that SI may have over egged the pudding a little, we all know that top tier English clubs use squad rotation in the domestic cups but they don't just play any random set of youngsters & except for one instance I cannot recall a weakened side being put out for a final.

I do remember there being a lot of complaints about big clubs not really weakening their teams for cup games, especially the League Cup, where it's obviously very common. Seems like they've now gone too far in the opposite direction.

I skipped FM11. Was it like this in that version or is this new in FM12. As I mentioned above, I know it wasn't in FM10.

The balance was pretty decent for FM11, as I recall. Pretty accurately reflected.

The issue was raised last year, where AI teams were fielding weakened sides, even in later stages against opponents of the same division

In FM11 even found myself in the position of the FA and League Cups being won by lowly Prem teams and Championship teams for decades and only once by a top 4 team... something which is actually rare IRL

I've not really gone far enough into FM12 to see if it's the same, but I would not be surprised if it is

this explains why i played swansea in the league cup final and sunderland in the FA cup final.

i never weakned my team.. united have plenty of rotation, no reason really, i ended up using welbeck in champions league semi.

I don't understand why SI would think this is acceptable or realistic. From all the FA Cup matches I've seen in real life, the clubs take it seriously and put out their best 11. I understand that the League Cup is not taken seriously but surely the FA Cup is.

Something similar happened to me when I played an away game against AC Milan in the first knock-out stage of the Champions league. Since my IFK Göteborg has a low reputation (2 stars), I guess that meant the game counted on an easy victory because Milan played almost exclusively with reserves/youth players. Unfortunately my team played an awful game an it ended in a 1-1 draw, but still, kinda silly to field a youth team in the knock-out stages of the biggest competition in the game.

Sam Allardyce doesn't take the FA Cup seriously, I'm sure there are a number of Premier league/Championship managers who rest players in both cup's.

Strange, when I won the League Cup with Forest, Tottenham fielded a full strength side.

I know Tottenham aren't quite Man United, but they are very good in FM, and if a top team field there strongest team in a League Cup final you would expect them to play their strongest in the FA Cup final.

As an aside, I keep waiting every year for the League Cup to be considered a minor trophy but it never happens .

I think there should be another category of trophies, things like the League Cup and the FA Trophy should at least count for something, even if winning 20 is only the same manager points as half of an FA Cup.

Silly the team being rested so late into the FA Cup. Reminds me of 1999 when United didn't even play in it!

Yep I had this issue in FM11 aswell, really kinda ruins the realism of the cups when the big teams are being beaten by lower teams so early and so often all the time. As has been said, the big clubs do rotate but nowhere near to this extent. The big English clubs also do it in the the eurpoa league to, in my long term save on FM11 English teams were frequently getting knocked out in the third/forth round qualifiers by nobodies all the time due to the majority of their team being in the U-18/resverses. It got so bad at one point that the Eng-cocffeeint plummeted to a point where we lost a CL place.

A workaround I found is to set all the cups reputation to 200 (the max) ether on the ingame editor pre-game or on another editor such as FMRTE, you would have to do it for every cup u wanted, from what I can tell the rep of the cups stays fairly static unlike the league which are of course dynamic, the Europa league is completeliey static so you dont have to re alter them every 5mins, for some reason not even this fixes the issue completeliey (teams field stronger sides but still weaker then IRL) but its the best ive found. Of course this also has knock on efefcts for other parts of the game so u shud think carefully before u do it.

Silly the team being rested so late into the FA Cup. Reminds me of 1999 when United didn't even play in it!

So they didnt win the treble in 1999 then which included the FA Cup? If your going to slag them off at least get it right

So they didnt win the treble in 1999 then which included the FA Cup? If your going to slag them off at least get it right

Maybe he means in the season starting in 1999 (even so, he would still be wrong because Man Utd's first FA Cup tie would have occurred in January 2000 I think)

Maybe he means in the season starting in 1999 (even so, he would still be wrong because Man Utd's first FA Cup tie would have occurred in January 2000 I think)

Exactly! Your correct. The 3rd round is always in January, therefore it would have been 2000.

I dont think he was slagging anyone off, just pointing out united pulled out one year......

I managed to win the FA Cup with my Sheffield Wednesday side whilst in the Championship as Liverpool played their reserves against me in the final. Easiest cup win I've ever had, didn't play a single Prem side right up until the final and then Liverpool put their kids out against me! Felt a bit of a hollow victory afterwards mind.

I dont think he was slagging anyone off, just pointing out united pulled out one year......

How does resting players remind somebody of a team not playing at all? It was a snide dig yet still managed to get it wrong.

hahaha paranoid man united fan i see. Even if he was there is no need to get wound up about it, a lot of folk hate united, you should be used to it by now.

hahaha paranoid man united fan i see. Even if he was there is no need to get wound up about it, a lot of folk hate united, you should be used to it by now.

Of course im used to it Just makes me laugh when people try to have a go then cant even get it right. Looking at the location, im wondering if ive took the comment out of context. My initial thought was slagging United so probably a Liverpool fan but not so sure now :confused:

I think you have taken what he has said the wrong way, if he was going to dig at united, doing so in a such an ambiguous manor would be pointless. He would have just come out and directly had a go, he may have his years mixed up but i think his point was they pulled out one year, in this cup final they may as well have pulled out since they played a youth team instead of their first team.

I think you have taken what he has said the wrong way, if he was going to dig at united, doing so in a such an ambiguous manor would be pointless. He would have just come out and directly had a go, he may have his years mixed up but i think his point was they pulled out one year, in this cup final they may as well have pulled out since they played a youth team instead of their first team.

TBF Blackburns team doesnt look full strength to me either. Bunn in net, Givet, Yakubu and Dann on the bench. No Perdersen at all? But still Blacburn's starting line-up still has a lot of established Premiership players like, Olssen, Nelsen, Koren and Vukcevic

Yeah it does seem strange, def something SI could do with looking into, there is no way either team should be playing a youth or second line up in the FA cup final, not unless either team has a champs league final a few days later, and even then both line ups should be stronger than that, thankfully this does not seem to happen in the SPL, i cant buy a cup win to save my life!

Yep I had this issue in FM11 aswell, really kinda ruins the realism of the cups when the big teams are being beaten by lower teams so early and so often all the time. As has been said, the big clubs do rotate but nowhere near to this extent. The big English clubs also do it in the the eurpoa league to, in my long term save on FM11 English teams were frequently getting knocked out in the third/forth round qualifiers by nobodies all the time due to the majority of their team being in the U-18/resverses. It got so bad at one point that the Eng-cocffeeint plummeted to a point where we lost a CL place.

A workaround I found is to set all the cups reputation to 200 (the max) ether on the ingame editor pre-game or on another editor such as FMRTE, you would have to do it for every cup u wanted, from what I can tell the rep of the cups stays fairly static unlike the league which are of course dynamic, the Europa league is completeliey static so you dont have to re alter them every 5mins, for some reason not even this fixes the issue completeliey (teams field stronger sides but still weaker then IRL) but its the best ive found. Of course this also has knock on efefcts for other parts of the game so u shud think carefully before u do it.

Interesting solution. What effects does it have on other parts of the game as I am thinking about using this solution.

the FA cup it happens for real, thats the magic as it were.

but the sillyness of facing swansea in the league cup final, and sunderland in the FA cup final (who ended up religated)

man city were knocked out of the champions league qualifying as well O.o

the FA cup it happens for real, thats the magic as it were.

but the sillyness of facing swansea in the league cup final, and sunderland in the FA cup final (who ended up religated)

man city were knocked out of the champions league qualifying as well O.o

All of the above is perfectly reasonable though. What teams are in the finals isnt an issue. Its the players those teams are using when in the final. As a United fan, you yourself should know that in recent(ish) history, Millwall got to the FA Cup final, so did Portsmouth and got relegated IIRC. Middlesbrough also reached the League Cup AND FA Cup finals in the same year but were also relegated. Birmingham last year won the league cup but was relegated.

As for City getting knocked out of Champions League Qualifying, thats perfectly reasonable also. With the way they teams are drawn together now, they could have played a very good, strong team from another country. Maybe the likes of Juventus, Inter/AC Milan, Valencia, Lyon, Marseille, Dortmund, Ajax, PSV..........

Yeah exactly its not the teams making the the final, its the manor they appear to be getting there because of poor AI squad selection.

The problem I see is that the competitions reputation is static and the AI doesn't see a difference between the first round or the semi final.

IRL the cups reputations don't only alter over the course of years but are different for each team and change depending on how well a team is performing not just in them but in all other competitions.

Take for example Chelsea at the start of the season they may prioritize the league and the champions league with the FA cup being much less important and the League cup being a distraction. If come January they have crashed out of the Champions league and FA cup and don't look like they can challenge for the league suddenly winning the league cup becomes a priority.