Race for The Top 10

[WiganSpur]

Pretty much every UEFA/Europa campaign starts with people saying we "have a chance to win it" but the reality has been very far from the case. We've played in ten Europa/UEFA Cup campaigns since I've been following the club, but have failed to reach even the QF stage in eight out of 10 and have never gotten past the QFs. All I can think about when I think of Europa League football is getting knocked out by teams that our players and fans clearly considered beneath us like Gent, Basel, Panathinaikos, Rubin Kazan and Shakhtar. We lost to Dortmund in 2015 and Sevilla in 2007 but even teams who were hardly seen as tournament favourites like Benfica, Fiorentina and Besiktas have looked like world beaters against us.

It's much tougher to win the Europa League than people think. And it's barely worth it - there's little financial incentive and little exposure - nobody that isn't playing in it watches anything before the semi-finals which we've not reached since 1984. The Champions League spot for the winners has helped but it's still a massively high risk strategy to go all out for it unless you are struggling domestically.

Depending on summer transfer activity though, it might well make sense to see how our young players bed in - Sessegnon, Ndombele, Skipp, Gedson, Tanganga and Clarke could all have done with some low pressure, low risk games to show what they can do - after all it was the Europa League where Kane built his confidence and showed Poch that it was worth dropping Adebayor to give this young kid a go. But don't get cocky and start thinking we'd immediately be amongst the favourites - at the moment if we were to draw Man Utd, Leicester or even Wolves in a two-legged knockout tie, would you bet big money on us going through?

Even if you said to me we can't win it next season there's still an argument to play in the Europa League. With the EL2 coming soon a lot of the dross will be cut out and it will at least be fairly competitive. That's great for our young players and squad players so they can keep fresh and not become disillusioned with play time. It also provides opportunities for players to play their way into the side - the likes of Ndombele might get opportunities to start imposing himself on matches and earning a starting spot in the league for example.

If we weren't in it, we'd be better finding loans for all of Foyth, Skipp, Tanganga, Parrott, Clarke and some other squad players would need selling. If we still had desires to bring in RB, DM, CB, ST etc the squad would need gutting both for reasons of squad harmony and also finance to an extent.

 

[buckley]

Bill Nicholson said " if we are not in Europe we are nothing " however people In this country play down the Europa League it is viewed highly by other european countries .Also as an afterthought does anybody know if the Europa League mirrors the champions league and the
" rewarding failure " namely finish third in the champions league group stage but continue to the knockout stage of the europa cup ends .?

 

[Monkey boy]

I hope we use the rest of this season as an extended pre season, try out different players and different formations and get as rested / fit as possible so that we are ready to hit the ground sprinting instead of running or in our case these days walking.

 

[ItsBoris]

We won’t catch Chelsea or United now, only hope is a Leicester collapse and we pip Wolves to 5th and then City’s ban is upheld. But yeh basically it’s over. Europa it is.

United is only 4 points above us. I'm not giving up on catching them. If we win all our games we'll finish in the top 4. That's tough but we've gone on 7 game winning runs before.

 

[ItsBoris]

Next season is all down to how you look at things - what hat you're wearing.

There's absolutely no way we're getting CL football. Apart from the financial hit, which will be massive, I'm ok with this. Don't think the club/team is capable of competing there yet.

Europa you can take either way. There's a chance we'll get it. If we do - it could be an unwelcome distraction. A lot of travel. Not much money. A lot more games to add to a busy schedule. On the other hand, it is some more money, even if not much. It is a little better for the club in terms of prestige compared to no Euro football at all. It's a chance for different players to get playing time. Jose has won the competition and knows what it takes - it could be seen as a genuine route to silverware and a CL spot.

Depending on what we do or don't qualify for, I think Jose will make it his priority to win one of the lesser trophies next season. If we're in the EL, I think he'll go all out to win that. If we don't qualify for it, it'll be the League Cup he'll push for - as he has done in his first season at every club.

Frankly if we win something I will be through the roof, don't care what it is or what other fans say. It's been too long without silverware and a very dangerous attitude - that we're somehow too good for some competitions - was fostered in the club by Poch (one of his few real mistakes IMO). That attitude is not healthy for any club and it's done real damage to the fan mentality too IMO - this must be stamped out as soon as possible. Winning counts. That's all. You cannot demote trophies as being unimportant to your club when you've won fuck all for 12 years and lost your record of success over decades as we did between 2010 - 2020. That one fact was a disgrace.

We need to win things. It's the only way the club will grow and genuinely have a future at the top. Arsenal, and ourselves in the last 12 months, have proven that regular CL qualification on it's own means absolutely nothing beyond the financial rewards - it's winning things that counts.

Fuck that - we just made the final LAST YEAR! From that team we've lost Eriksen, but added NDombele, Lo Celso, and Bergwijn - arguably stronger on paper. We've won 7 premier league games in a row before. And this time 5th might get CL.

But the idea that we don't belong at the top table is just wrong imo.

 

[LSUY]

If we can not reach the Champions League who are we to decline Europa League?

get it on. Maybe some fresh opponents, new challenges and a cup to win. Our squad is quite big and more games means more games for the likes of Sess, Skipp, Japhet or hopefully Parrott.
Take it seriously and go for the win. I want us to win something really bad. The Poch era was nice and had awesome games and moments. But looking back it feels a bit like unfinished business.

We're Tottenham Hotspur. We won the League Cup 12 years ago. We're too big a club for the Europa League. Why would we debase ourselves to compete for a trophy only smaller and less successful clubs like Chelsea, Atletico and Man Utd seek to win?

 

[archiewasking]

United is only 4 points above us. I'm not giving up on catching them. If we win all our games we'll finish in the top 4. That's tough but we've gone on 7 game winning runs before.

I love your optimism Boris, I wish I shared it.

Now clear off. Haven't you got a country and a Brexit to screw up???

 

[KikoSpurs]

I love your optimism Boris, I wish I shared it.

Now clear off. Haven't you got a country and a Brexit to screw up???

itsBoris but not Johnson.

 

[SpursFox]

The 90's was one of our darkest decades, yet still we won a couple of trophies, one of which was the FA cup. Last decade, even though we were far better, consistently challenging for qualification into Europe's premier competition, even reaching the final, and in a couple of instances the league itself, we won nothing at all and sadly that will blemish the era. Id take a league cup and Europa win and finishing 9th over pipping Man U to 4th and winning nothing again. I mean sure, its easy to say we will just turn up and win the Europa, when of course, its not that simple, certainly not when you get to the knock out rounds and you usually end up with a few strong teams knocking about, but its certainly achievable and from the get-go we'd be one of the favoruites. Id rather have this as an option, something to aspire towards than not have it at all. Yeah we have typically done poorly in the Europa, but for the most part we haven't even tried to really push for it, I'd imagine that would be different were we to be in it under Mourinho.

 

[shelfboy68]

The 90's was one of our darkest decades, yet still we won a couple of trophies, one of which was the FA cup. Last decade, even though we were far better, consistently challenging for qualification into Europe's premier competition, even reaching the final, and in a couple of instances the league itself, we won nothing at all and sadly that will blemish the era. Id take a league cup and Europa win and finishing 9th over pipping Man U to 4th and winning nothing again. I mean sure, its easy to say we will just turn up and win the Europa, when of course, its not that simple, certainly not when you get to the knock out rounds and you usually end up with a few strong teams knocking about, but its certainly achievable and from the get-go we'd be one of the favoruites. Id rather have this as an option, something to aspire towards than not have it at all. Yeah we have typically done poorly in the Europa, but for the most part we haven't even tried to really push for it, I'd imagine that would be different were we to be in it under Mourinho.

We are expecting too much from Jose how anyone can stand s chance of winning anything under this ridiculous set up is beyond comprehension.

 

[Spurs2020]

I think we will finish 7th tbh... 6th at best meaning we catch wolves.. man utd look like they will finish strong same with Chelsea... so would take leister city to keep performing bad for us to get 5th .

 

[ShaunL84]

The Europa League is good for kids and families, not everybody can afford to go to a league game.

 

[carpediem991]

The Europa League is good for kids and families, not everybody can afford to go to a league game.

Thinking about big capacitys at football games soon deserves an optimistic rating

 

[Snarfalicious]

We know the Europa League sucks, but I’d still piss my pants with glee if we won it. All of us would. Pee pants for all.

 

[chinaman]

We know the Europa League sucks, but I’d still piss my pants with glee if we won it. All of us would. Pee pants for all.

Winning it will ensure CL participation the year after.

 

['O Zio]

Im absolutely desperate for us to win something. Don’t care whichever trophy it is. We need to win one soon. Personally it’s so I can banish the champions league final memories. Other fans will only be jealous, that’s all. Ignore them.

Will they be jealous? How many times did arsenal win the FA cup during Wenger's final years and hardly anyone even noticed. The main talking point surrounding it each time was whether it made it even more difficult to give him his P45. Each time in the heat of the moment it bought him another year but withing days of winning the thing all the sentiment had been forgotte

 

[TheRevolution]

I wouldn't be surprised if Wolves, Leicester and United all drop points in the next game week. Tough away fixtures against teams looking to finish strong and escape relegation. Granted we have a difficult game away to Sheff United next Thursday, they seem to have had the wind knocked out of their sails last couple of games, lets hope that continues.

 

[Bobbins]

Fuck that - we just made the final LAST YEAR! From that team we've lost Eriksen, but added NDombele, Lo Celso, and Bergwijn - arguably stronger on paper. We've won 7 premier league games in a row before. And this time 5th might get CL.

But the idea that we don't belong at the top table is just wrong imo.

Do you honestly think the team is anywhere near their previous standards? Key players like Dele, Kane, Vertonghen, Son and Toby are light years away from the form they showed when we were ripping up the CL. As you say we've also lost Eriksen - the single most important player to the way we played. N'Dombele doesn't even count - he's not only not superior on form to any of our previous players, the guy isn't even playing. Lo Celso is brilliant and Bergwijn shows promise - those two do not make up for the massive degradation of the squad, and we absolutely do not play anything like the same way we did when Poch's teams were smashing the likes of Madrid.

We're only arguably stronger on paper if you're playing Football Manager and you're basing everything off player stats. We are not the same team we were and I'm not sure why you'd think we are?

Didn't you see us in the CL this year? We absolutely scraped through most games and got roundly smashed a total of 14 - 3 by two German teams. We are nowhere near the level required to be able to make any sort of success of a CL campaign as well as the PL and domestic cups.

We have absolutely no chance of winning 7 in a row this season and we'll be nowhere near the CL spots.

I'm not sure what football you've been watching this year but it sounds like your season has gone a lot better than mine.

 

[stormfly]

Europa League is another route to CL so it’s a no brainer for me. Play reserves for the early rounds, if top 4 is unrealistic then we have another shot. That’s if we miss out on CL this year. Can I point out that 3 years ago I would have said stay out of Europe and we can win the league. Unfortunately it looks like that ship has sailed

 

[dickieven]

Will they be jealous? How many times did arsenal win the FA cup during Wenger's final years and hardly anyone even noticed. The main talking point surrounding it each time was whether it made it even more difficult to give him his P45. Each time in the heat of the moment it bought him another year but withing days of winning the thing all the sentiment had been forgotte

I noticed. And was pissed off they were winning trophies when we were actually better than them. I want to win a trophy and I'm pretty sure the players would want to also.