I'm sorry, but I can't agree with this.The same players went out in the second half that played in the first. The difference was night and day, and while that prompts credit for Maresca for managing the turnaround, he gets an equal amount of blame for the first half.If the players aren't set up for success, mentally and tactically, that's on the manager. And the fact that we're seeing this same thing in first half performances match after match after match, says that Maresca has a genuine problem setting the team up properly from the start.We can't keep doing this. Because for every Newcastle, where we at least salvage something from the mess, we're going to have 3 or 4 Leeds, where we don't. We're leaving points on the table because for whatever reason, Maresca has a problem getting the team ready to play from minute one.This doesn't make me Maresca out, don't get me wrong. The fact that he's capable of setting up teams so well for some games, makes these kinds of matches even more baffling, and considerably more irritating. That starting team was more than capable of walking away from the game with a comfortable three points, and instead we were scrambling to keep hold of one.We're winning nothing unless this gets fixed. And for all the bullshit about "experienced players" being needed, I don't think that would solve jack. The team wasn't ready to play that match yesterday, and sprinkling a couple of 30 years olds into the team isn't going to fix that.

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The good, the bad and the downright ugly on view tonight.Another first half wasted with apathetic, slow, pointless football. If there was one kind of opposition made for us to play quick, one touch progressive football, it's a third tier team trying to play like a Pep side. Instead the only times we weren't playing slowly, was when we were playing so slow that I was checking if the feed had frozen.And it wasn't like we were concerned about what was coming at us. Cardiff looked largely toothless around our box, so we could certainly have pushed things along a lot quicker. If we'd played the first half the way we played the second, we'd have put the game to bed by the half and we could happily walk it around and save legs in the second.And while I don't think the first half performance was entirely down to the 11 changes, it's hard to pick out a single fringe player that screamed that they deserve a start. Hell, it's hard to pick one out that you'd trust as a backup on the basis of this performance. And while I think the setup caused some of those problems, the players, particularly the attacking ones, struggled to make an impact.And if they can't do it against Cardiff, how much faith can we have in them for PL games? Or CL games? We've got a strong, deep squad in theory. The practice tonight suggests otherwise.But there were some positives. Pedro linked up well when he came on. Garnacho did pretty much what he did at the weekend, except this time the chances were buried. Neto did Neto stuff, as expected. Josh looked decent enough at RB.Job done, and we move on to the semi. One big game away from another final. But now we need to bury the December blues with a good run of positive results. And we need better performances from some of the backups over the coming weeks. The fixtures means we have no choice but to use them.

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