Confronted with suggestions that his substitutions were an admission of failure, Rosenior pointed to the physical toll on his squad. "I think it's not just an admission. It's a reality of where the group are," the coach explained. "They've played over 100 games in 18 months. They've had no break in terms of the international games, the travelling that, say, Joao Pedro or Enzo Fernandez or Moises Caicedo do to South America. It's not an excuse. This is a by-product of success of the Club World Cup and it's a great thing that the club achieved at the Club World Cup."
He added: "You're seeing with Reece [James], you're seeing with players, that if I don't manage their minutes, their likelihood of getting injured is increased very highly. So I want us to make sure we're in this competition next season as a minimum. We're still fighting for an FA Cup, but I have to make maybe really difficult decisions that at the time probably don't look great, to be honest. You never want to take off your best players when you're five goals down in a tie, but I want to make the right decisions for the football club in the long term as well."