That's literally football though. Are you advocating getting rid of random cup draws? Not that last nights was totally random of course with the six clubs in Europe being kept apart. I think you're making the mistake that the game has ever been truly 'fair'. It isn't and like I say luck has always played a big part in sport. If a club loses their best player to a freak injury or medical incident on the eve of a new season should all other clubs not play their best player to make it more 'fair'? Of course not.
You'll not know how you finish for a while. You.might get an ok stsrt but then look like you slumped down the table. One week teams will be playing gimmes while you are playing tough game but tjr theory is it's swings and roundabouts. But come on. psg v city (easy) Lfc v real Madrid City.v inter (easy) Leipzig v lfc (not sure) There's a massive difference there. City can easily take 6 points out of Pot 1 and we will do well to get 2. Right off the bat we are struggling to get top 8 as a result. Not only that but it affects our coefficient as well. Again Dortmund v city (dortmund a shadow of last season, easy City v bruges (wtf) They'll fly through probably with 6 to 8 wins am nd be able to rest players as well.
No. I just think prize money should outweigh the benefit of lucking out a draw against a top team. Going further in a comp should always earn you more money than a team that lost but got a tasty away day
Have you seen the prize money in the league cupnand fa cup? Match day revenue always trumps prize money. Give us a home tie and we will get about 3million in revenue. That's the prize.
Which is why I wonder for the lower lesgue teams if you offered them a gauranteed sum - pick a number at random, lesgue 2 clubs get 300k, lesgue 1, 500k and champ - 1m from hand me downs from the prem tv money and you get rid of the league cup I wonder how many would be in favour.
Well you know parry would be in favour but i think the point back is thst the fans of said clubs might well feel difference.
So increase prize money for everyone based ok what a 75k attendance at Old Trafford covered by TV would mean. Doesn't seem particularly realistic. Fact remains it's literally the luck of the draw. If you take competitions seriously every season and win games then you've got more chance of getting such a draw. At the beginning of the draw every club has the same opportunity of getting a plum draw and that's the beauty of cup competitions. Like I say luck has always played a part in sport. Focusing on this one minute aspect of the game and decrying it as unfair just seems an extremely odd hill to die on. Luck especially plays a part when it comes to cup competitions. When the blue few down the road from us won the FA cup in 2008 they played a championship side in both the semi and the final which is unparalleled in the modern era. Does it matter? Not one bit.
Ok but why do you need a league cup and an fa cup which are essentially the same thing, other than even weirder rules that now European clubs get extra seeding?
Yeah even for a lower league club say they pull in 5-10k for a cup match. That's still a six figure sum that they wouldn't have had otherwise which isn't an insignificant figure at that level.
More games = more money. As a football fan I love it, you get a cup competition for pre Christmas and one for after, often with lower prices meaning people can go who might not be able to afford to otherwise. For a good few years after my son was born the cup games were the only ones I could attend. I love the league cup tbh. Cup football under the lights, can't beat it. I hate this notion that we have to match ourselves up to other domestic leagues. I like that football is quite unique in this country and it's terrible to suggest that we should make 86 clubs suffer for the sake of 6.
The fa cup rules are extremely generous to away clubs too. They will take their cut off the top and then 45% of match revenue goes to the away team and 45% to the home team. That's a lot of money for a "small team" if you get a 60k prem team stadium
Yeah that's why both clubs have to agree on pricing too in the fa cup isn't it? My point though was that even two 'drab' home cup ties for a League 1 or 2 club will bring in a significant amount of money (for them) that they wouldn't otherwise have.
Which is also the other side of it that you could take a a guaranteed smaller amount annually.as an inducement rather than get that once in 4 or 5 years at best. Thats the Craig parry type argument. He'd take any.cash
Their way of fending off Super League attempts, probably. I'm interested to see how it pans out, tbh, and I'll reserve judgement for a while.
So has the Europa changed format as well to allow for the loss of third place CL teams parachuting in?
Amazing that a computer is now doing this and suddenly it seems more rigged than ever lmao who would have thought that City would get an easier route if it existed Defo not me
I don't understand the new CL format... I can't be arsed figuring it out... It's ****ing bonkers... Important bit.... I'll watch the games and let someone else tell me how we've done in the table Some nice games to look forward too in there though. Shame about Real Madrid though, we never beat them.