I fucking hate the Europa league so would happily throw it.
It's a drain on resources. We won't win and, if we stay in it long enough, we will end up playing on a Thursday away and a Saturday in the next game due to tv fixtures.
The golden nugget - a champions league place isn't so attractive when we're 2nd and going strong.
I pointed this out elsewhere. The only club anyone can think of that's won both the no-hoper league and their domestic league is Porto. They could probably rest most of their squad in their shitty domestic league and still walk it. This was when avb was in charge and they had Moutinho, Hulk and falcao in their side.And the ground will open up and swallow up all the good players, and Poch will move to manage Man United and Levy will sell the club to Stan Krone, and Paul Merson will take over as manager and................
Happy fucking chappy............ain't ya.
The "we won't win it" attitude left the club the day Poch became manager thank fuck, just a few little dribbles left hanging on the end of the noses of those fans still full of defeatism.
Playing EL now is not only about Thursdays and Sundays and Tuesdays. The opponents we will be up against in EL moving forward can be prime experience for a young squad i need of top tier European matching.When we're in the champions league we'll get the benefit of more favorable fixture patterns. Saturday Tuesday Sunday Wednesday etc.
I don't really give a shit. I'd rather we go balls out to win the title in the next 13 games then dick around in a 2nd tier cup hoping to win 9 games to win it and end up 5th in the league.Playing EL now is not only about Thursdays and Sundays and Tuesdays. The opponents we will be up against in EL moving forward can be prime experience for a young squad i need of top tier European matching.
Statistically speaking, there seems to be a correlation between PL winners and winning at least minor titles in the preceding season. Hence, if we don't win the PL now, god runs in other competitions will prepare us for next season.I don't really give a shit. I'd rather we go balls out to win the title in the next 13 games then dick around in a 2nd tier cup hoping to win 9 games to win it and end up 5th in the league.
I'm fed up with the "cup team" tag. If we want to be big time we need league titles not a cup win once a decade or so.
I'm happy to go for the league and fa cup.Statistically speaking, there seems to be a correlation between PL winners and winning at least minor titles in the preceding season. Hence, if we don't win the PL now, god runs in other competitions will prepare us for next season.
I'm happy to go for the league and fa cup.
I think that's more than do-able
In the context of this thread - should we throw the Europa league and push for the title?Win a couple of games and now we are expected to do the double okay mate
If you think about it we are currently in 4 competitions:
– The race for the title
– The race for top 4
– The Europa League
– The FA Cup
Given the potential rewards and the likelihood of success we have to prioritise the league. It would be great to win it but given where we are to finish outside the top 4 now will be hard to take. The FA Cup is manageable given that it's played at weekends. If we get past the 5th round we should keep giving it our best shot. The Europa has to be the thing that gives. There's loads of games, its lots of travel and its Thursdays. Potch played very strong teams in Europe pre-Chrstmas but I think we'll have to play more of a 2nd string option from here out. In particular that will mean resting Harry. IF we get to the semi-finals we can reassess depending on our progress elsewhere. Its a nice problem to have but we do need to manage things carefully.
The FA Cup should be the lowest of our priorities, tbh. Especially now that it seems likely we'll get top 4.
We need to be able to handle CL, PL, CL weeks. So we should use these as practice for that.
Plus, It is absolutely imperative that we stay in the competition for the Premier Leagues sake, which in effect is actually our sake too. Especially since we're fighting every season to make CL. It is important that the PL retains that 4th CL spot as long as possible. We likely wont lose it this year but next year we probably will which means that when we open the new stadium, getting 4th wont even be enough and we'll have to get 3rd. It will just be that much more difficult to really progress onto that next level.
Post within a post, within a post, within a post.
Postception.
We should prioritise the PL by resting as many first XI players as possible for the Europa.
HOWEVER, I think the 'second team' would do better in the Europa, and would be more motivated for it.