Sven-Goran Eriksson furious with squad

FURIOUS City boss Sven-Goran Eriksson is ready to give most of his Goodison flops the chance to put things right in tonight's FA Cup replay with West Ham.

The City chief was so mad at the first-half ineptitude at Everton that he accused his stars of not even trying to play the right way. He raged that they had ignored everything they had done in training before the trip to Merseyside.

Eriksson claimed with that opening 45 minutes he could easily have dropped all 11 for tonight's vital tie.

"If you rest players for not doing well at Goodison Park then I would have to change all of them," he said.

"The whole team didn't play our best football and in the first- half they did not even try to. I expect it to be different tonight but I am not worried because we have good footballers.

"We must start to play our passing game from the first minute tonight. Before the game at Everton we had been playing good football with the same players so there is no need to change everything."

Midfielder Michael Johnson and striker Emile Mpenza are the two names missing that might have started the match and Eriksson's major decisions lie with who to play up-front and who to play on the right flank.

No fewer than four different players - Elano, Nery Castillo, Darius Vassell and Stephen Ireland - occupied that position at Goodison and Eriksson must now decide which of them is best for this contest.

Clearly Elano was happier in the middle playmaking so the choice may come down to whether the manager feels that Mexican international Castillo needs more time to adapt to the pace and physicality of English football and whether Vassell or Rolando Bianchi is best equipped to lead the line.

Whoever he picks, Eriksson's passion for the competition burns as brightly as ever.

"I am happy to still be in the FA Cup but I feel we could have won at Upton Park when we were the better team," he said.

"We are not in Europe and are out of the Carling Cup so the FA Cup is of great significance to us. Everyone knows how big the competition is. It is a long way to Wembley and I will be happy going to Sheffield in the next round.

"Having played West Ham twice already and watched them again on video with the players yesterday, I am sure there will be no major surprises for us or for them. They are a good side and it will be tough."

The tie will be decided one way or another tonight and the prospect of it ending on penalties doesn't faze the Blues boss despite the lingering pain from botched shoot-outs when he was in charge of England.

"I may not have a good record when it comes to penalties in this country but in other countries the statistics were good," he said.

"We are prepared if the tie goes that far. In training if games end up level then we take penalties. We practice a lot but as a manger you never know after 120 minutes and injury time who might be on the pitch so you cannot say definitely who will take them."