IPSWICH TOWN COMMENT

IPSWICH Town boss Paul Lambert was strangely techy and aggressive when discussing his team selection for Wednesday's FA Cup replay at Lincoln City.

To say he got on his high horse would be an understatement.

With an expletive thrown in for good measure, to hammer home his point, he went on the defensive and claimed "I don't have a strongest 11. I believe in everybody to perform".

Fair enough.

It's his prerogative to name whatever team he wants, especially with a crunch League One fixture against Blackpool looming on Saturday.

It's encouraging he's got such faith in the depth of his squad.

However, any comment or questioning of his selection policy is also perfectly fair, reasonable and justified.

I, like others, I'm guessing, released a sigh of disapproval when seeing the teamsheet at Sincil Bank.

Lambert got away with it, because of Alan Judge's last-gasp winner, securing Town's first FA Cup victory since 2010 and the stormy days of Roy Keane.

However, his policy could have backfired spectacularly and it was a big, bold call to leave Will Norris, Luke Chambers, Luke Garbutt, Cole Skuse, Flynn Downes, Jon Nolan, Kayden Jackson and James Norwood back in Suffolk.

Had things not gone to plan, he would have opened the door to fierce criticism.

Perhaps the acid test will be how the returning contingent fare against Blackpool.

Only Downes (who played all 90 minutes in the first match against Lincoln, in addition to plenty of England under-20s action in the last fortnight) and Norwood (just four minutes against the Imps) have played since Town's last league fixture, when they won at 1-0 at Rochdale on Guy Fawkes Night.

As a collective, will the players listed above be refreshed, recharged and hungry?

Or will they be rusty, off the pace and out of sorts?

All will be revealed this weekend and only then, regardless of what happened in the cup, will we know if it was managerial mastery or a lucky gamble on Lambert's part.