I can’t believe you guys for wanting Villa to win the final CL spot rather than Spurs! They don’t deserve it anymore than Spurs. Whoever finishes 4th, deserves it whoever that may be. I remember the days of playing in the Conference on Thursdays and everyone moaning about it especially when spurs lost their Sunday games after travelling to some far flung teams no-one had heard of.
What you can work out statistically is how many points you need to be ahead to be 99% or 95% certain of actually being the best team allowing for luck and random poor decisions altering the result of a match. In round numbers I would say at least 1 point a match is randomly allocated somehow which will mean the 95% confidence number is about 6 for each team. So this year's winning margin is in the noise.
i think a few fans still watch the game in the hope of seeing their teams win trophies, so they try to remain realistic as to the ones they think their clubs can be competitive in many have been converted into football accountants since the conception of the PL and only watch the game to see how much money the owners of the clubs they support can make and regard such things as trophies. unfortunately the former type seem to be a dying breed id rather win the Europa than brag about getting trounced by Real Madrid in the CL group stages or last 16
Obviously I would rather win the Europa than get knocked out of the CL. But I would rather experience the joys and tribulations of seeing Spurs aim high and try to win the CL. Not looking at the statistics, I suspect we have had more joy and a better win rate in the CL compared to our time in the Europa.
If I was seeing us build a squad/squads to seriously challenge for major trophies then I could put my energy behind it. I don’t believe we do that as a club. Clubs are run in the image of their owners and our owner isn’t interested in going to the top on the football pitch. From what I am seeing and have seen for years and years, we build squads that at best might scrape 4th spot and as a result we year in year out on average fight for 4/5/6th spot. The evidence is there for all to see…it’s no wonder clubs come from the doldrums, show a bit of ambition then become our latest rivals, such as Villa. At the very least we should as a club be flirting with glory in the manner Liverpool do and then I would believe that we have some ambition. By now we should be regularly fighting for 3rd or 2nd spot then I might say we are progressing but no we are still at the same stage we were at in 2010 hoping for last minute miracles ala Crouch at City, in order to qualify. This week we are hoping the mighty Villa slip up to help us in our CL quest. I see no progress just a different scenario but same outcome at best as 2010. We are not a CL club imo
I think a large reason for that is because we’ve respected the CL as it should be yet disrespected the EL (and ECL). When Spurs have entered the EL we’ve often been around 3rd-5th favourites to win the competition yet often severely underperformed due to managers and players (which I think stems from the hierarchy) treating it as beneath them because they’re only focused on reaching 4th in the League. Similar for the ECL, we were joint favourites to win it and yet failed to get out of the group, which included a loss to the lowest ranked team in the competition. It feels like the last time we gave the EL the respect it deserved was our first year back in it in yonks under Jol when it was still the UEFA Cup, we played more or less our strongest team in each game and won every game up until the quarters where we were defeated 4-3 on aggregate to Sevilla who ended up winning it (don’t they bloody always!). If we gave the Europa and even Conference some genuine respect as a club, I think by now we could’ve very possibly had our name on one of the winners’ podiums. For me, whilst I get CL is the pinnacle of football and we can all find a common Bill Nich quote of aiming high, I’d argue that aiming to genuinely win a competition is aiming higher than to practically just take part and make up the numbers in another. Of course, a dream goal would be to win the CL but I think reality has to be taken into account and as much as we’d love to do that, we’re far off from the level required right now. Yet a good crack at the EL next season with some smart additions is very much in our capability.
Is Aston Villa? I agree with your sentiments though. But on the other hand, we need CL to help with our retention of our good players and attraction to future signings. These measures will help us become a “CL” team. Signings are going to be difficult this summer due to the Euros. Anything that helps us attract the right signings would be welcomed!
Spurlock hates Pinkie. Israel hates Pinkie. Spurlock likes Israel. The logic is watertight. Spread the word.
I want to see us compete at the highest levels and try to win without cheating. The only reason I am interested in the money aspect is because lack of money is what stopped us doing that for years. The lack of money can be solved in two ways only....from the owners....which in football has meant sportswashing. Or by organic growth with the right long term aims. We've got the most ambitious owners we've ever had but not ones with excess cash to wash through the club.
There are going to be 36 teams in the CL next season. We are certainly one of the best 20 teams in Europe and it doesn't feel right to me that we should be happy to drop into the second tier competition even if the qualification rules make that much easier for us to achieve than some far worse sides.
I personally think lack of cohesive and sensible decision making, together with awful recruitment both on and off the pitch, have hurt us far more than lack of money in recent years.
Which is belied by the fact that we have remained top 6 in recent years which equates to our position in terms of money. This myth about our recruitment being worse than other teams is not borne out by the facts. All teams sign players that don't bring the expected performances. All these criticisms by fans are made with the luxury of hindsight. We can all be wise after the event.
UEFA coefficient, Squad cost and value. Being 4th or 5th in the PL. I reckon we are more like 12th in practice.
That's why we changed the managers. Overall in the last 20 years we have more often than not finished top 6. Before that we were often midtable. More likely to win a cup of course.
34th in UEFA coefficients, probably lower than I’d have expected but I don’t think we’re 14 spots lower. Our squad cost is probably higher than it’s value. I would say we are probably around the 25th best team in Europe right now. It was a lot higher in Pochettino’s good years.
