I hate Maths

[Neil Hawkes]

Smithy is aware how starved we are of silverware & I'm sure he would want to win as many trophies as possible, irrespective of what trophies they are.

[SoccerHQ]

If you take the top 10 not including us, we have won 3 lost 4 and drawn 1 with 2 still to play.
We will need to significantly improve on this to be any where near.
I dread the Europa League.

Not having a go here Chicago but why do people fear the Europa League, its two extra matches (one round) if you get to the final? It means a Thursday/Sunday as opposed to Sat/Tue or Weds schedule for parts of the season but I'm struggling to see why that matters.

I think it is prettty worthless . It seems to ruin most English teams season, so if you are attempting top 4 then find your self in a long run in this competition its very difficult to do and gain 4th place. I would rather we went for the CL and forget about the EL and if we enter use it for squad players.

Leicester City doing ok and in Europa
Man Utd finished  3rd last season got to semis Wolves 7th got to quarters
Chelsea season 2018-19 finished 3rd won Europa
So ....

I agree with this, the teams that see it as a chore are generally teams that don't have strong enough squads to consistently challenge for the top 6 anyway.

there are plenty of other examples when it has had a detrimental effect , particularly teams that do not have squad depth.

I'm not sure how that disagrees with what I said, teams with a decent amount of squad depth (which we will have by the start of next season in my opinion) generally use it as a chance to rotate players and give the fringe players a decent amount of gametime, clubs that can't do that are the ones that suffer.

All said I'd rather be in it than not finishing high enough in the league to qualify, in the same way I'd take a win in the FA cup and the place that comes from it without a thought.

When you look at how we did it under MON we played a really strong team v Ajax in our first game and won that which put us in a really strong position to qualify and then we put largely second string teams out for the other three games, won in Prague and then lost at home to Zilina and away to Hamburg.

Was a bizarre system in those years, rather than just home and away in four team group it was five teams and we played one home, one away for some reason.

Anyway the problem was suddenly deciding to switch to reserve team for 2nd leg of knock out rounds so that should never happen again and wouldn't given europa now has champions league qualification for the winners.

[paul_e]

To be clear I'm talking about playing a reserve team, just that with the extra games it would make it easier for people like Heaton, El Ghazi, Nakamba and Hause to get 15-20 starts in the season without us looking like we're constantly changing the team.

[Ads]

If we qualified for Europe, we'd add 3 or 4 more bodies onto what we've got. That would be a pretty reasonable squad size surely?

[wittonwarrior]

I've never understood why bother qualifying for a competition and then bombing it by playing reserve players.  MON took a gamble in Moscow which backfired  I was not one bit happy and didnt even go to the free night at VP.

[ChicagoLion]

Close the thread

[Pete3206]

Close this

[Drummond]

Close the thread

Why? Lost your bottle?

[olaftab]

Yes another one please close this thread. It’s embarrassing.

[Pete3206]

I'm off to find a bottle or two after that

[ChicagoLion]

Close the thread

Why? Lost your bottle?

macho man strikes again

[Villan82]

If we can't cope with a shit team trying to unsettle us we are nowhere near a top four team.

That's the most disappointing night of the season. Shocking- poor at the back, soft in midfield and not clinical enough in the final third.

Much work to be done.

[Astnor]

We are not a top four side in the near fututre. Losing todays game together with some others like Wet ham shows that and you cant put it down as bad luck IMO.

[Ads]

1 point against Genital Wart FC could prove costly.

[Hairbandinho]

I think we can lock this thread being realistic!