I said it a while ago, but the days of winning the FA Cup being proof of a good season are almost long gone. For some clubs, but not many, winning the FA Cup is the second part of the Double - but to win a Double you need to win the league For certain clubs, winning the FA Cup is a smokescreen to divert attention from on-pitch failings elsewhere These days winning an FA Cup might be a highlight for clubs in the Premier League's mid table and below, just like it was when Portsmouth won it a decade ago (or, further back, when Everton won it in the mid-90s) but for a lot of clubs it's a distraction - either distracting players from the league or European form, or to distract the fans from the club's failure to deliver in other competitions. Also, in terms of our performance in this season's competition, what really gets me is the reactionaristas are trying to say this season was our best chance of winning the competition. It wasn't, last season was - right up until we got fully Twatkinsoned in the semi final. This season we appeared to be going out of our way to make an utter hash of it, going from inexplicably playing the majority of our regular starting team against Wimbledon, a pair of abject performances against Newport and Rochdale that led to a bunch of fixtures being rearranged to accommodate the replays, a stroll against Swansea's reserves, and finally a semi final where we apparently forgot there was a second 45 minutes and skipped to the warm-down exercises. All this's season's FA Cup did was expose the weaknesses in our squad, as well as our lousy squad management in the mid-season.
Leicester have signed Ricardo Pereira from Porto. Weren’t we linked with him last year but we got Serge Aurier instead?
We tried playing silly buggers with his release clause, which strangely didn't make Porto want to negotiate with us...
Well that was profound - a well thought out and certainly thought provoking debating point - well done you have summed up your club and its supporters in 13 words
Winning the FA Cup has always been a bonus for clubs and a good day for the fans. It exists as a record because people decide to keep records of these things, but it never has defined a season except by hacks who always look for a hook to hang a story on. If all you see are the cups and final positions of a season then please explain to me why you have wasted your time watching all those games through the season? Football matches are complete entities in themselves and millions watch games for pleasure, that is what defines a season. As for Chelsea the only time I care what happens to them is when they play Spurs. Winning loads of cups would never compensate me for having to watch that bunch of prima donnas every week apart from Willian and Aspelaiwhatshisface they only turn up when THEY decide it matters.
The other way to look at it is that, forty years ago, it was basically the only match guaranteed to be shown live every season so it felt important just because it was on TV - but these days, with several Premier League matches being shown live every single week of the season, it's Just Another Match and we're a few years away from having a generation of journalists and pundits used to being able to consume numerous live matches on Sky who are unaware of what the FA Cup final used to be.
Spot on HBIC I remember how exciting it was because as you say it was the ONLY game on TV. The whole nation was fixated by it. Those days have gone and the standing of the cup with it. It's a shame in some ways because younger fans will never get that huge buzz that we deprived football fans enjoyed but it did distort the game as whole with the league winners reduced to an announcement on the 6 o'clock news and little else.
No matter how the FA have sold much of the soul of it in stupid fixture dates + SFs at Wembley, the ROI for big(ger) clubs winning it etc, the FA Cup is still IMHO the most noble competition in football. Nothing beats the thrill of the R3 draw, and the possibilities it opens.
Yes it's still open to all constituted football clubs to enter and is very important to clubs in lower leagues and if they manage to get to the 3rd round can sometimes win a club saving/making draw against a 'big' team. Like 'The Open' in golf it's for the whole game and almost anyone can play.
Are you Adrian Durham? I absolutely guarantee that one of his utterly predictable wind ups this week will be that Chelski have had a better season than us. He did it last year when he said ManU had a better season than us. An utterly nasty person.
Chelsea's minimum requirements for 2017/18: Champions League qualification Spurs' minimum requirements for 2017/18: Champions League qualification One of those teams managed to deliver that, one didn't. The team that didn't deliver cannot say they had a better season.
