• You may have to login or register before you can post and view our exclusive members only forums.
    To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

4th or 7th

Status
Not open for further replies.

SummerOnions

Let's Push Things Forward
Administrator
It kinda came up in the Arsenal thread..

But I'm assuming that if we can't make 4th everyone would rather we stayed the fuck away from the Europa?

What's everyone's feelings on this?
 
Does The Fa Cup not get you into Europe these days? If we win that won't we be in Europa?
 
I want us to win the UEFA Cup again. If we can't get into the European Cup I'd want us in the UEFA Cup, no question.
 
I want us to win the UEFA Cup again. If we can't get into the European Cup I'd want us in the UEFA Cup, no question.

Understandable, but I disagree. It's no accident that, in a season when we didn't enter it, we damn near won the league, and IMO the league should be our standing priority.
 
Understandable, but I disagree. It's no accident that, in a season when we didn't enter it, we damn near won the league, and IMO the league should be our standing priority.
Er, no. Get as high as possible in the league and, if we're in Europe, try to win that as well. Rodgers needs European experience and the team needs to learn to play in multiple competitions. After all, how we expected to win the CL, the PL and the FA cup if we don't?
 
I know lets become fucking arsenal.. where be it our main goal is to finish 4th..

Fucking numpties..

We have a chance to win a trophy.. the FA Cup..

Let win the thing, and have a two bites of the cherry in getting into the Champions League next season.. (assuming we don't qualify this season)
 
Lose to Arsenal and go out to Blackburn in the FA cup, and this season is a big fat failure.

One game at the time though. Arsenal away will be difficult but we can do it.
If we dont finish 4th then I'm not to bothered where we end up.

If we get to the EL, I hope Rodgers use it to play the reserves and kids for experience.
 
Er, no. Get as high as possible in the league and, if we're in Europe, try to win that as well. Rodgers needs European experience and the team needs to learn to play in multiple competitions. After all, how we expected to win the CL, the PL and the FA cup if we don't?

By playing in the top competitions, which the Europa League ain't, and you get to the top level step by step by improving in the league. At our current stage of development, if we go balls out for everything we'll succeed at nothing. If we *do* go in for the Europa League I agree with Hansern above.
 
I know lets become fucking arsenal.. where be it our main goal is to finish 4th..

Fucking numpties..

We have a chance to win a trophy.. the FA Cup..

Let win the thing, and have a two bites of the cherry in getting into the Champions League next season.. (assuming we don't qualify this season)

Wind your neck in, mate. For one thing nobody's talking about the FA Cup - now we're in the semi, of course we should try and win it. For another, "our main goal" is to win the top competitions. If going in for the second-rate ones gets in the way of that - and at the moment it will, which is why we didn't enter the EL last season - it's plain daft to treat every competition as if they were all worth the same.
 
In a way we probably want Europa League in order to keep up our coefficient points or if we do ever return to the CL again then we'll be 4 seeds in a group!
 
Understandable, but I disagree. It's no accident that, in a season when we didn't enter it, we damn near won the league, and IMO the league should be our standing priority.


Yes, but we've padded out the squad since then and success breeds success. We should be looking to win everything we're able to - we're not in a position where we are confident we can challenge for the league year after year. We need to start winning trophies - it will make us more attractive to potential signings and should help to instill a winning mentality in the squad.
 
Brizzle: I see what you're saying, but we achieve the same goal by doing better in our own league, and we do so on a more secure basis.
 
Yes, but we've padded out the squad since then and success breeds success. We should be looking to win everything we're able to - we're not in a position where we are confident we can challenge for the league year after year. We need to start winning trophies - it will make us more attractive to potential signings and should help to instill a winning mentality in the squad.

We're not yet in a position to challenge regularly, but IMHO we have to prioritise getting there. I agree about the importance of a winning mentality and of attracting top signings, but IMHO winning the EL or domestic Cups is neither here nor there in either respect. If it had been, we'd have really taken off after winning the Treble. As it is, that was just a (massively enjoyable) interlude, nothing more, and it still would be if we repeated it next season. In the overall scheme of things those competitions simply don't matter.
 
As a side point, when I applauded our back to basics approach to the away game at Madrid, I was kicked from pillar to post on here, as it turns out it gave us the basis for our new found defensive stability. It's a learning curve playing in Europe, but the Europa League is one big headache in terms of schedule. I reckon we would have a genuine crack at the league if we sacrifice it.
 
We're not yet in a position to challenge regularly, but IMHO we have to prioritise getting there. I agree about the importance of a winning mentality and of attracting top signings, but IMHO winning the EL or domestic Cups is neither here nor there in either respect. If it had been, we'd have really taken off after winning the Treble. As it is, that was just a (massively enjoyable) interlude, nothing more, and it still would be if we repeated it next season. In the overall scheme of things those competitions simply don't matter.


We should have taken off after winning the treble, just as we should have after winning the European Cup, but we have suffered from a general malaise when it comes to bringing the right sort of players in. The risk in prioritising some competitions over others is that if success comes - say if we won the league - we would be in a crap position to capitalise on that because we wouldn't have a competitive squad. We need to get to a position where every summer we make 2-3 top quality signings and that's it for the first team squad. We can't do that unless we already have the squad base to build from, and we can't have the squad base unless we are in as many competitions as we can, because these players won't want to play the squad game if a) they aren't playing regularly and b) we're not winning stuff.
 
We'll have to agree to differ. I don't see how we could be said not to have a competitive squad if we'd just won the league, and I don't believe that winning the EL or domestic cups attracts top players. I'd lay odds that all they look at is competitiveness in the league, leading to regular CL qualification.
 
This is a really tough question. I think we're in the middle of a massive shift in the way the game works and there are going to be clubs who are "in" and clubs who are "out" of an elite. Getting into the CL is really critical for us to be in the elite teams in future. Yes we're about winning trophies but if the choice is winning one this (or next) year at the cost of being left behind forever then I choose the better long term option.

Not being in the CL/EL does give us a much better chance of qualifying for the following year as we saw last year so from that perspective we may want to miss a year totally. But....that said, we did build a squad last year that was supposed to give us the ability to rotate with a lot of games in mind so I think we should go for the EL if we qualify - it'll be good experience of playing a lot of games for when we're in the CL and want to stay in it albeit the Sunday games aren't great.

But back to my first point about the massive shift in the game - ultimately if we don't qualify this or next year our long term future will hinge on the $$ from the new stand, the effectiveness of the marketing department and Brendan Rodgers.
 
Given the massive new tv deal I dont think its that its critical to get into the top 4 this season.
But over time we certainly have to be one of the top 4 clubs to progress even further.
We might miss out on an extra 50 mill but if we could get our shit together in the transfer market we'll have more than enough cash to compete with nearly every other club in Europe when it comes to signings (bar PSG, Bayern, Real, Barca etc obviously).

Utd are alreday filthy rich and will spend 150 mill regardless of CL or not. I dont think it will influence them to much when it comes to players either as they already dish out 250k wages to a few people.

I wouldnt want to end up in the EL. Rodgers might need the experience but its a cunt of a competition.
 
Given the massive new tv deal I dont think its that its critical to get into the top 4 this season.
But over time we certainly have to be one of the top 4 clubs to progress even further.
We might miss out on an extra 50 mill but if we could get our shit together in the transfer market we'll have more than enough cash to compete with nearly every other club in Europe when it comes to signings (bar PSG, Bayern, Real, Barca etc obviously).

Utd are alreday filthy rich and will spend 150 mill regardless of CL or not. I dont think it will influence them to much when it comes to players either as they already dish out 250k wages to a few people.

I wouldnt want to end up in the EL. Rodgers might need the experience but its a cunt of a competition.

We do need to be in the top 4, because the base line for spending will raise for the top four sides, and we all know we have a tendency to be erratic with our spending, so the reality is that the top four can spend big and continue to progress, whereas we have to get it spot on to avoid falling behind.
 
Er, BT are going to be paying loads for Champions League. It's more important than ever to keep up.
 
The importance or otherwise of CL football will be decided by the owners, they're the ones who'll be making the calculation.

Surely their main concern will be how profits can be made or am I being too cynical?
 
The importance or otherwise of CL football will be decided by the owners, they're the ones who'll be making the calculation.

Surely their main concern will be how profits can be made or am I being too cynical?
The importance or otherwise of CL football will be decided by the owners, they're the ones who'll be making the calculation.

Surely their main concern will be how profits can be made or am I being too cynical?

Not really, but one of the biggest factors in that is CL revenue, surely? Especially when you consider what work we are carrying out on the stadium.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom