Next season it’s time to admit

TheRemainsOfTheDave said:
Very few English teams win both the CL and the league. It's more a choice between those two, probably.
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I'd go so far as to say no English team has ever done anything but fluked their way to the CL title. The rags in 1999 is the only time that an English team hasn't won it on penalties and even then, it was a definite smash and grab job against a superior team. Nobody has ever won it as comfortably as Real, Barca or Bayern Munich have in the past, even when they've probably been the best team in Europe.
 
Doesn't really follow that throwing the cups means you're successful later on. We should absolutely try and win everything going, we're not shithouses like the scousers. We were a missed pen or a handball away from the semi-finals.
 
argyle said:
Would anyone be happy with just winning the League cup and F.A. cup?
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It depends how we lose the other two. If we put in maximum effort, play really well and things just don't go for us, or we're honestly beaten by a better team, then I don't have a problem. If we throw it away ourselves by playing sub-par for large parts of a competition, then I'd be pissed off. Last night was shit, but I'm delighted with our season so far. And obviously it's worth mentioning that we haven't won the FA Cup yet.
 
Nope we show all competitions respect, always prioratise the league with any other pot as a bonus to any season, bit we never should devalue them like the sky 4 ****s have over the years
 
Even if you are of the mindset that you can't fully go for all four, it's such an extreme reaction to say we should play only kids in the cups. We have a big squad. No reason why we can't put out 7 or so senior players in the cups along with a few youngsters.
 
TheRemainsOfTheDave said:
Very few English teams win both the CL and the league. It's more a choice between those two, probably.
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Liverpool might this year and they went out first round in both domestic cups. I don’t think the choice is between the PL and CL. As the poster said, these two competitions should be the ones to focus on and not the domestic cups. Whether we like it or not, the order of achievement is PL or CL first followed by FAC followed by LC.
 
Time to give away the League Cup

It means nothing, yet we often play many top liners in the games when they could be getting much needed rest. One or two games here and there makes a massive difference over the course of a season IMO

Need to prioritise better. From next season on wards, the team sheet MUST be filled with the likes of Mangala, Sandler, Garcia, etc. I'd go as far to say as Guardiola should even give himself a break from those games and let Arteta get some valuable experience by taking the reigns
 
MaineDAWG2008 said:
Yep agreed

We fucked up by playing first team players for Carling cup games. Carabao.

Fuck that shit competition. No benefit in it. Extra time. Extra games. Pep fucked up.
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MaineDAWG2008 said:
Yep agreed

We fucked up by playing first team players for Carling cup games. Carabao.

Fuck that shit competition. No benefit in it. Extra time. Extra games. Pep fucked up.
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And we lost Kevin after Fulham.
 
If you want them all you need the squad to win them all. Do get me wrong our squad is phenomenal, but we don't have two world class players in each position to compete for all four competition something has to give.

Maybe that's Soriano plan all alone, increase our revenue to justify our spending power on better world class players. The Puma deal is one step, but we need more deals like this one to buy players and maintain a high wage structure.

With our current squad we have what it takes to win the treble (League, FA Cup, League Cup).

I'm still gutted about the Champions League, really wanted us to win this year. :(
 
greasedupdeafguy said:
I don't really see how not winning the league cup would have affected last night.
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Wasn’t it the reason the United game was moved? Which then became one of the reasons we ‘managed the squad’ with the first Spurs game?

In simple terms, to be successful in the PL and CL you need your main players to be playing up to 50 games a season. That is plenty for optimum levels.

Throw in another 10+ games in the domestic cups with extra time, replays, having to rearrange games etc you are going to either 1- change your team too much for big games down the line or 2- exhaust your players when they get to the biggest stage of the season.
 
greasedupdeafguy said:
I don't really see how not winning the league cup would have affected last night.
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Bizarre completely agree.
Shit happens sometimes which is why we lost. Not because players were fucked.
Time to take a breath and go again. 6 games to go to secure domestic treble. I reckon boys will be up for it.
 
A problem I sense is that we have a bit of a gap between the first-team players and those youngsters that could be entrusted with appearances in the League Cup. In the first two rounds, only Muric, Foden, and Diaz started, which meant we were already over-reliant on various first-team squad members; never that keen on the idea of first-team regulars needing such games to gain fitness/focus. Often think that we would be better served having 3-4 of our loan players back playing in these games and then supplementing the first-team, ala Zinchenko, more regularly.

It's also hard to use the 'treating tournament with respect' line and then field a squad of youngsters, but maybe if we can go on and win the treble, it might give us the opportunity to say we've done it, we've enjoyed the challenge, and now we've learned from our experience and are instead going to prioritize.
 
As someone who witnessed the success of the Mercer/Allison years and has enjoyed our current success, who else would sacrifice a cup or two to see our young kids make the first team?

I would.
 
urban genie said:
Nope we show all competitions respect, always prioratise the league with any other pot as a bonus to any season, bit we never should devalue them like the sky 4 ****s have over the years
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That's the problem though - specifically with the League cup

The League Cup makes a congested point of the season worse IMHO. Teams have got QF and SF games around an already hectic Christmas period, coming off the CL group stages. I'd rather players had the rest for the league games

Any trophy is an accomplishment, but at this stage of the ongoing evolution of the club we do need to prioritise
 
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