UEFA Cup and Spurs

[AngerManagement]

That maybe so, but I don't buy the tiredness argument, it just feels like an excuse to me. What is the size of the squads of the teams involved? looking at the teams that are involved this year, the majority have smaller squads than us with a lot less depth in quality throughout. I think that is more of an over-riding factor than playing wed-sat over thu-sun.

Spurs on the other hand have a squad that is big enough and has depth to deal with both the EUFA and league this season without a problem. The only player I would certainly ring fence is Ade, we lose him and i think we would be in all sorts of problems.

Put it this way

Do you think there is even the slightest chance that for whatever reason if we had played a more full strength side in the Europa this season we would have performed less well in the league?

If you like me agree that it is at least a possiblity ask yourself this....

what would you rather have? more Europa football or be one win away from second in the table right now?


Also, do you not think that we should have been able to get through with the sides we played considering the level of opponent we played? Those who represented us in the Europa were more than capable of getting out that group and probably should have won it.

 

[vegassd]

A reason for the Thursday performance drop-off might purely be from travelling. The CL teams are generally based in cities with flights direct from London. Travelling out to Europa teams can involve loads of transfers and more crappy travel arrangements which will just put an extra strain.

The Europa league involves a hell of a lot of work to win it so even if we had played our first XI every time I don't think it would have been as easy as some people seem to make out. It would have guaranteed that our league form would have suffered though, so why take the risk?

 

[TheGreenLily]

Put it this way

Do you think there is even the slightest chance that for whatever reason if we had played a more full strength side in the Europa this season we would have performed less well in the league?

If you like me agree that it is at least a possiblity ask yourself this....

what would you rather have? more Europa football or be one win away from second in the table right now?


Also, do you not think that we should have been able to get through with the sides we played considering the level of opponent we played? Those who represented us in the Europa were more than capable of getting out that group and probably should have won it.

I think we should and could have taken the competition very seriously. I am not saying to play every first team player in every game.

We could had played Sandro on Wednesday (not unless he is injured) and sure up the midfield (it is not like he is starting every league game, why put out a back 4 that have never played before together in such an important match, if the competition was being taken seriously?

I have not said to play all our first team players in every game, but we certainly could have had a more serious approach to the competition.

 

[fieryjack]

A reason for the Thursday performance drop-off might purely be from travelling. The CL teams are generally based in cities with flights direct from London. Travelling out to Europa teams can involve loads of transfers and more crappy travel arrangements which will just put an extra strain.

The Europa league involves a hell of a lot of work to win it so even if we had played our first XI every time I don't think it would have been as easy as some people seem to make out. It would have guaranteed that our league form would have suffered though, so why take the risk?

This made me laugh out loud.
They dont travel on Ryanair or Easyjet with the rest of us.

 

[AngerManagement]

I think we should and could have taken the competition very seriously. I am not saying to play every first team player in every game.

We could had played Sandro on Wednesday (not unless he is injured) and sure up the midfield (it is not like he is starting every league game, why put out a back 4 that have never played before together in such an important match, if the competition was being taken seriously?

I have not said to play all our first team players in every game, but we certainly could have had a more serious approach to the competition.

We did take it seriously to the extent you mention though

We played Defoe and Pav in pretty much every game, Sandro has been suffering from his hamstring injury all season so of course we played him sparingly

When we were facing elimination we brought on Bale, Modric and Walker

We played a team that was more than strong enough to get results pretty much through out

If we had played more of the first team it would have meant extra work load, more risk of injury and could have negatively effected our current league campaign.

We are now in a title race, something that we may not have been had we taken more risks in the Europa.

I think we were right to treat the tournament as a secondary priority this year, the league is all important to us and we are flying in that.

The kids and squad players should have walked that group, and we should not have lost to the Greeks with that side we put out. (players let us down and results didn't go our way)

Its not a big deal though, the Europa was not ever going to be the focus of our season.... the league is, so as long as we continue our to perform well there I really couldn't care less that we are out of the Europa (no more so than losing to Stoke in the Carling)

 

[ThorntonSpur]

paok will be beat rubin

 

[tttcowan]

More than happy to be out of this, especially with Manure drawing Citeh in the FA Cup... Really think we should go balls out for the league and FA cup now.