Walsall away - still got bad memories of losing there in the FA Cup to a last minute goal as a yoof ... 1978 ... was 18 ...
European teams seeded so they can't draw each other and picked to play home or away pre draw? Utter bollocks
They should just skip all the rounds and start the quarters. Or maybe just put the European clubs in a hat and draw out the winners without even playing
... but it is sweet when the cartel members lose out ... hasn't happened so much recently but might happen this season with Villa, Brighton, Newcastle and ... without wanting to jinx too much, yourselves ... all stronger again and capable of turning them over on any given day ... and as Coventry showed last season ... get to a semi-final ... and anything can happen then get robbed
It's a compromise. The 'big' clubs would have just ended up pulling out of the competition if they'd played the first couple of rounds. It's not really much different to the FA cup proper, where premier league clubs etc. enter in round three. It's better this for the league cup, than have it abandoned completely. It's a great competition that should be maintained. What should happen is fewer European competitions but that's never going to happen.
Said for years teams in Europe shouldn't compete in the league cup. Bulk of the tournament is done pre Christmas the same time as the European group stages so would help with congestion for those teams massively. Not only that but the competition would be wide open meaning many clubs would take it more seriously as they'd have a genuine chance at winning it, in turn making it a much more exciting tournament. Give the winners the conference league spot and you'd get a different winner every year too.
Not sure I agree - in a way you are devaluing the competition... first time we won it under Martin O'Neil we'd knocked the then domestically dominant United out in the Q/F ... that's far sweeter than winning a competition because the biggest and best teams aren't in it ... would also cite Birmingham winning it against Arsenal ... would it be the quite the same feeling if they'd played the highest ranked PL team in the final ...and that was Brentford or Bournemouth?... ... but I get your drift...
