A bad night for the co-efficients and the 5th champions league place, in a week where it wouldn't have been the end of the world if the mousers, the goons and the spammers had all got a result all 3 let us down! Oh well we just need to the business ourselves Europa league it is then!!
If City and Arsenal make semi and therefore a finalist, would that get us into it? Villa could go through too, albeit in the conference competition. Liverpool and West Ham are done though.
Funny thing!? You could say Spurs are doing well in the PL while Chelsea are crap this season in the PL. Why is it Spurs can't win a cup game and Chelsea are doing well in the same cup competitions?
Part of me does think Europa would be better for us next season anyway. I’d say you need a bigger squad for Europa due to often excessive rotation but you need a quality one for the Champions League and we don’t have the latter, nowhere near close yet. I’d worry we’d end up like Toon or Utd this season and get embarrassed in the CL. In Europa we can rotate a decent amount and the likes of Dragusin, Bergvall, Solomon amongst others can all come into the XI for regular starts and we can still expect a positive result (on paper!).
Really have to agree with this. The 'Ange' project is in its infancy and CL next year may well be a poisoned chalice. Not just from a squad size /quality pov, but simply the impact on mentality. However, the down sides of not qualifying is obviously the financial impact and also the less attraction of top players to come to the club. It's a bit of a Catch22 scenario.
In the FA Cup we drew the world club champions whereas Chelsea haven't played a premier league team yet lets see how they get on against City!
Chelsea only played one premier league team, a weakened Brighton team, on their run to a league cup final...where they lost to Liverpool who played several players most people had never heard of. In the fa cup run they have only played one Premier league team Aston Villa and needed two games to beat them. They've simply got lucky IMHO. Bit like we did getting to the league cup final in 2021 They have
Due to VAR controversies, the Turkish FA have decided to finish the season with foreign officials. They will be brought in from Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland and Portugal. Hmm...
Looks like Newcastle saving it for us today. One wonders if we do get into the CL I'm sure teams will be better than Newcastle!
You might now see why I think CL is a step too far. Daring to likely get embarrassed isn’t daring at all.
I would rather the club have the extra money (to help rebuild the squad) and the games (to stretch the collective legs of the squad) while being embarrassed, then live as a "next year is our year" supporter.
Isn't history amazing?A few seasons ago we went to a relegated Newcastle to lock up 2nd place in the pl....lost 5-1 and gave 2nd to Arsenal. Today we go to a mid table Newcastle with a good chance of a 4th place in the CL. Result? A good kick in the pants for our fans with a 4-0 beating.Talk about Spursy! Is our team too delicate? Do we need some iron in it from somewhere? Liverpool fans seem to be not at all worried their team got hammered 0-3 at home. Spurs fans are different.Were bloody peed off!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68805247 How many more seasons out of the CL before they are irreparably damaged from ever buying a CL slot again ??
My moment of the week : <BBC> It all seems such a far cry from the latter years under Roman Abramovich, when Chelsea made selling players such an art form. </BBC> Yeah, there is an "art" in not having to be burdened by stuff like cash flow / P+L sheets etc.
City lead after about two seconds via a Hashioka OG from a deflected shot. Didn't he do that in another match recently? Luton will fight hard here, as they virtually always do.