- Jul 12, 2005
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1) Do you feel because we're most likely to be playing middling/average opposition in this tournament that we stand a greater chance of winning it?
We have a greater chance of winning the ECL than we do the league, FA Cup, or League Cup as it wouldn't require beating Man City or Liverpool, or Chelsea.
Also, this is a genuine competition with the potential for some cracking cup ties. A Jose-led Roma at the Stadio Olimpico won't be a walkover. Given our history with Feyenoord that has the potential to be a feisty encounter. Any Scottish team that draws an English team is going to be up for it. Let's not forget we got dumped out of the Europa League by a team knocked out of the Champions League qualifying stage by a Hungarian team. We aren't exactly the cream of Europe.
Yes, there are teams we've never heard of playing in leagues we didn't even know existed but the exact same thing happens in the Champions League, Europa League, and FA Cup. I don't recall anyone saying we should sack off the FA Cup because they've never heard of Marine.
2) Do you trust the current 1st team players to amply motivate themselves to give their all against said middling/average competition?
If the players can't motivate themselves to give their all for a trophy ship them out. Man City doesn't seem to have any problem motivating themselves whenever they face average teams in the League Cup final. Ferguson, Mourinho, and Guardiola have used the smaller cup competitions as a launchpad for further success.
We need to get rid of this we're too good to grace certain competitions attitude. It's been 13 years since we actually won something. That was so long ago that aside from Lennon and Huddlestone everyone else involved in that cup win has retired. What have we achieved since that gives us or our current players the right to describe Roma, Villareal, Feyenoord, Rennes, etc. as middling? We can't be average we were runners-up in the CL years ago...