Next season it’s time to admit

[jay_mcfc]

in hindsight Pep should have done a Klipperty Klopp and ditched the two cups and go for the PL and CL.
Now we’re out of CL would it be a poor season if we only win League cup and FA cup ?

Our B team is better than Liverpool’s. Looking at our fixtures in the cups, who would have beaten even our proper second team? We’re not ditching the cups, just resting a select group of seniors and giving more kids a chance.

 

[mccity]

I'd rather we go all out on every competition we're in. Pep's said for two years now that the key to CL success is repetitive domestic success, and if that's true I don't want anything to compromise that.

If we won a domestic treble every year for the next five years and didn't get past on CL quarter final I'd be extraordinarily happy. Sure, I'd be upset with our lack of progress in Europe as I'm sure everyone at the club would be too, but the foundations for future success would be SO strong I'd find it hard to be concerned.

 

[vmsuhail]

That the quadruple isn’t going to happen and play reserves and youth players in the two domestic cups. It’s been a heck of a ride and something the club can be extremely proud of.

But we cannot put ourselves in a position again where we play a full strength team in the FA Cup one day and have to rest players a few days later in a CL quarter final.

I know how some will react to this post, especially those that dislike the CL. But when domestic cups become detrimental to success in bigger competitions then something has to give.

All hail Jurgen !!!

 

[BosnianBlue]

League Cup is stupid competition, but it will probably stay as it is the best chance for smaller teams to reach Wembley.

Agree with OP, as much as it is great to add some silverware to our cabinets, it's time to prioritize things and play kids in that competition.

 

[Grealish’s Shinpads]

I don’t think the domestic cups have had that much of an effect and I think the quadruple could’ve happened and could still happen in the future with a bit of luck. It’s a combination of the scousers having a flukey one in a hundred season where everything goes their way, injuries to key players and just bad luck.

We still have the chance to finish on 98 points, which would be the second highest finish ever achieved by a Premier League team. Prior to last season most champions were finishing in the 80s in terms of points. Any other season we’d have wrapped up the league by now (see last season). That’s difficult when opposition keepers throw the ball into their own net in stoppage time gifting Liverpool points. Our squad is much deeper than Liverpool’s and I think if it weren’t for the insane amount of luck they’ve had, we’d have been able to completely focus on the QF against Spurs and would probably have progressed. Even with all this pressure in the title race we almost did it.
If you look at the games in which we’ve dropped points, we weren’t outplayed in any of them. We had three games where we were leading and failed to close the game out because we missed chances, only to then have been shafted by a soft penalty and two wonder goals that those players would have scored once from 100 attempts. Then there’s that missed penalty against the scousers and the handball against Wolves. Even against Chelsea we dominated and were ultimately outdone by not taking our chances. Any other season this team would have walked the league.

Add to that the injuries to KDB, Mendy, Kompany, Fernandinho, and so on, which have prevented us from rotating as much as we would have liked.

Equally, despite fighting on three fronts, we only narrowly missed out on progression in the CL. It was bad luck missing that penalty in the first leg and then we conceded silly goals at home, but it came down to fine margins. If we had made it through then there wouldn’t have been criticisms about Pep not throwing the domestic cups. People would’ve been praising him for his elite mentality and calling Klipperty a fraud for surrendering in the domestic cups to focus on the league. Our squad is capable of challenging for all honours, we have the depth.

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

We've proven we can't do it without it having a detrimental affect on the bigger competitions. Do you keep on making the same mistakes year after year?

But it's not year after year. Last season we threw the FA Cup ;-)

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

in hindsight Pep should have done a Klipperty Klopp and ditched the two cups and go for the PL and CL.
Now we’re out of CL would it be a poor season if we only win League cup and FA cup ?

Anyone wanting us to down tools or play severely weakened sides in certain tournaments,
need to re-think their logic. Because failing in one doesn't necessarily mean success in another.

 

[Indaparkside]

Anyone wanting us to down tools or play severely weakened sides in certain tournaments,
need to re-thing their logic. Because failing in one doesn't necessarily mean success in another.

Correct and the same people moaning about us winning the champions league. Are booing the anthem??? I boo it but couldn’t give a shite if we win it or not!! Would love another 10 leagues on the trot. Fuck euefa bent cvunts

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

Correct and the same people moaning about us winning the champions league. Are booing the anthem??? I boo it but couldn’t give a shite if we win it or not!! Would love another 10 leagues on the trot. Fuck euefa bent cvunts

It's annoying because I bloody well know that most of them would be apoplectic should we lose a cup match,
for those reasons. FFS the pre-match thread alone would be 400 pages long.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

What’s everyone going on about in this thread?

We’ve played fucking nobody in the cups. Oxford Fulham Leicester Burton; Rotherham Burnley Newport Swansea Brighton; Shakhtar Hoffenheim Shalke... were all fucking dreadful and we pissed it against the lot of them (maybe not Swansea but we scored with ease to close that game).

Lyon Chelsea and Spurs were our only tough games out of 15 different teams faced (and none of them are any of the best sides in Europe, by any stretch) in the cups and even then that’s been made up for by the large number of fucking bobbins teams who we’ve played and hammered in the Prem.

Throughout those cup games Murić García Sandler Danilo Delph Mahrez Otamendi Kompany Foden Díaz Poveda-Ocampo Jesus Nmecha all made appearances and even Grimshaw and Bolton made the bench.

 

[No One Understands]

We will be undefeated in the league next year

 

[bennyboy]

Pages and pages of shite.
Let's not try and Win rophies.
Bad enough listening to the moaners when we play semi finals and finals The same folk would moan if we get beat in the earlier rounds but a lot worse.

 

[NorCalBlue]

But we cannot put ourselves in a position again where we play a full strength team in the FA Cup one day and have to rest players a few days later in a CL quarter final.

Probably been mentioned by now, but if we hadn't been in the cup semi, we'd probably have had a league game, so it wouldn't really have made any difference.

 

[jay_mcfc]

Probably been mentioned by now, but if we hadn't been in the cup semi, we'd probably have had a league game, so it wouldn't really have made any difference.

Which meant the Cardiff game being brought forward a couple of weeks and meaning more weeks without a midweek break. It’s pretty simple maths to say more games equals more fixture pile up at the crucial times.

My biggest bug bear was that he played KDB in an FA Cup game but rested him for a CL game a few days later. Can’t have that. If it was a league no problem, will always be the priority for me, especially when it’s so tight.

 

[Leech]

I'd say Pep HAS to trust the squad more. For example can anyone honestly tell me that a team of:
Muric
Danilo, Stones, Otamendi, Delph
Fernandinho, Foden
Sane, Mahrez, Zinchenko
Jesus

ie NOBODY that started the second leg against Tottenham, wouldn't have been enough to beat Brighton?

 

[Southern]

Very few English teams win both the CL and the league. It's more a choice between those two, probably.

Would be much easier to win both if you don’t put first team players out for the domestic cups

 

[Andrew___K]

Pep Guardiola: "I’m not going to drop any competitions because maybe in the future it will be better. I will dream next season of fighting for the four titles." [via @andyhampson]

 

[the blue panther]

The squad is big enough to cope. It is by far the strongest in the country. What cost us was very,very poor defending for all 4 goals against Tottenham - ignoring the missed penalty by Aguero.
We must go for everything, and, as long as Pep's in charge, I'm sure we will.

 

[MeatHunterrr]

To be honest, I don't think we can start sacking off competitions if we want to have deep squad now thinking again. We need as many games as possible to have deep quality squad to keep everyone happy.

 

[Thomas Hearns]

Thank you that finally someone made some sense. Favoring the Carabao Cup over Champions League by some is simply a silly joke. The quadruple or even the triple is unrealistic, and highly unlikely to happen. If we started playing the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup mainly with youth, we will win the PL comfortably for many years to come, and we will probably throw a couple of Champions League trophies in between as well. I would take these two competitions over the other two at any time. Who would remember who won the Carabao Cup or even the FA Cup a couple of years after winning them? Arsenal won FA Cup several times over the past few years, who the f**k even cares?

I remember and I care. Seeing us win the FA Cup and the League Cup were some of the best days of my life