As Aston Villa face Ipswich Town in the FA Cup, players will be glad to be free from the pressures that recent league matches have put them under. After all, getting smacked about by teams bigger than you is one thing, but having the same thing done to you by Wigan is quite another.

With all that said, whilst league pressure will be absent due to the nature of the game, Villa team will still be feeling some degree of expectancy when it comes to progressing to the next stage of the country’s prime competition – the FA Cup.

Whilst many of us may have lost our faith in the competition overall, there is obviously glory associated with winning it, even if we are many steps away from that goal at present.

What the team need to do here is find some kind of refuge from recently hard lessons without suffering a smashing at the hands of Championship quality players. So, and here is the dilemma, does the manager rest players and hope to get by with a weakened team? Or does he play a stronger team despite the more pressing semi-final coming up on Tuesday?

In addition to this, how will fans react if the club do tumble out of the cup? Yes, the semi-final against Bradford City puts Villa within literal touching distance of Wembley, but should fans be “OK” with the idea that Ipswich may prove too much for the club’s potential second string?

Which is the main balancing act I don’t envy Paul Lambert having to undertake in the slightest. The challenge is to put out a team that rests enough of the senior players to be able to compete on Tuesday, but without dropping so many that the win isn’t secured. Get it wrong either way and the manager either faces the wrath of fans for losing against a lower league team, or he potentially risks the possibility of winning on Tuesday.

Of course, Bradford are a League Two team and, in theory, should take less effort to beat than Ipswich. However, theory is of little relevance when a League Two team is in the semi-final of a knockout competition having knocked Arsenal out in the process.

So, in simple terms, it makes sense to put less effort into the competition we have invested less energy into, i.e. the FA Cup. Whether we win or not – and I believe we have what it takes to win – is probably of the least significance when viewed against both our league cup progress and our league position.

In short, I will be there to cheer the lads on for the game at Villa Park this afternoon, but I don’t see the FA Cup as our prime focus at the present. If we can win, great, but a win Tuesday will for far further to boosting our chances of attracting players in this transfer window.

Here’s to rolling right over the Tractorboys but, whatever the result, I’ll have one eye on Tuesday. Glory beckons, and a lack of pressure on the team for Saturday may actually help advance our other two areas – the league and league cup – and we are in desperate need of a breather to help us progress in the aforementioned competitions.

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