Like everyone else associated with the club I am delighted with the upturn in our league fortunes and position since MON took the helm. Our position has benefitted from some good luck at crucial points, tremendous commitment from what at times has been a squad on the edge, and some superb organisation and discipline - even our zonal defensive set up for corners has for me transformed our ability to defend those key set pieces since GOD sorry MON has took over. While nobody can take their eye or focus off the EPL I think we are pretty safe now, but, I feel there are real limitations to what we can now achieve this season from our poor starting position; I'd say 8th at very best, more likely 9th to 11. So we should have a real go at the Cup. As a boy I witnessed the 73 final and semi final, and most of the other games home and away in 73 and know what a great run in the FA Cup can mean and feel like. We have also of course experienced some great cup day and nights since. Providing we can negotiate a tricky 3rd round tie with our currently depleted ranks I think we should make a good cup run a real priority. I think we have proved over the last few week that under O'Neill we can beat anyone on our day, so why not? It would inject some genuine further excitement into the second half of our season, would be great for the clubs profile before the summer transfer window, and could be the cherry on the cake of a strong second half of the season. Also many of the genuine top 6 teams have their focus elsewhere. Here's hoping. . .
We are 50/1 to win the cup I am very tempted to stick £50 each way on it. I just have a feeling..... one of the Manchester clubs will be going out and other clubs like Chelski and Arsenal have the champions league to deal with. In reality Spurs, Liverpool and which ever Manchester club is left will be favourites but in a one off game anything can happen.
I'm all for a good cup run but the league has to be our priority. I think you hit the nail on the head with your OP. MON isn't just a fantastic manager, he's blessed with luck also.
My sentiments precisely, and what with the luck of the Irish currently on our side too?? They look attractive odds to me - I think I might make a similar investment
Get a decent draw and you never know. Only think with gambling on cups is before you know it you draw Man City away in the 4th round and its game over
MON has a fantastic track record in the cups as well, he knows how to get the payers up for the one of games. If i was offered 14th and a cup final, i´d take it, purely because, as has been mentioned, a really good finish is unlikely. I think we´ll make top 10 again, and a cup run could give us some real excitement in what is likely to be an entertaining, but largely meaningless season now that the worries are over.
If we want better players to come we need to get into europe and the cup is a backdoor into the competition
No one can really be saying thatthey would give up a cup final for 1 or 2 places in the league can they? I was at the final in 73 and I can tell you that feeling is better than finishing a couple of places higher in the league. It lives with you for ever. Go for it, in it to win it!!!
your just trying to make me keep my boner on, with all this excitement waiting for the next game,........go on admit it
I'd love us to have a good cup run, but, in our current predicament, we need to get points on the board before thinking about making anything but the league a priority unfortunately. Thanks to Sky's millions, clubs as a business no longer care about wining the cups as, financially, it isn't worthwhile (prize money for the cups is less than 5% of prize money for finishing 17th in the premier leage!!) Third Round Qualifying winners (40) £7,500 Fourth Round Qualifying winners (32) £12,500 First Round Proper winners (40) £18,000 Second Round Proper winners (20) £27,000 Third Round Proper winners (32) £67,500 Fourth Round Proper winners (16) £90,000 Fifth Round Proper winners (8) £180,000 Sixth Round Proper winners (4) £360,000 Semi Final winners (2) £900,000 Semi Final runners-up (2) £450,000 Final runners-up (1) £900,000 Final winners (1) £1,800,000 Crazy isn't it - especially as Wolves received over £40m for finishing 17th last season!! If a massive company came in with a sponsorship deal for the FA cup saying the winners will get £20m, it would make clubs look at it differently IMO, unfortunately I can't see it happening. I don't disagree with your post at all and I would love the cup to be a priority - just, unfortunately, I don't think the business side of things is any good with a cup run! (If you win the cup, the total prize money over the season would be just ove £5.5m) So £40m for finishing just in the premier league (or 39m for getting relegated!) or £5.5m for the cup! Sad reality of modern day football
Unfortunately Blackcat I think Marcus has a point. Although I do think our season is about the two games against the skunks and the two cups on the understanding we are a mid-table team. Because of our poor start to the season we are still struggling in the league and our next game is against Chelsea in London. So given the injuries we have and given our lack of strikers and the need to protect the few we have, I would probably give the likes of Noble, Laing etc a run out on Sunday. If we have say 30 points I would probably go for it and play out strongest team I would put Ji and Ryan Noble up front yes but rest Seb, Vaughan O'Shea etc and give Gordon ago in goal and anybody else who needs a fitness test. Survival in the EPL has to be a priority, so that includes overcoming the hoodoo the skunks seem to have over us atm, then comes the two cups that are our best chance of sliverware. TBH I am not sure I would want to be in the europa league, too many games for too little money and unless you have a big squad if hurts your EPL results.
SUNDERLAND striker Ryan Noble is set to get the nod for this weekend’s FA Cup trip to Peterborough – as Martin O’Neill ponders a loan move for the Black Cats’ young gun. Noble scored his 13th goal for the reserves in Wednesday’s second-string win at Arsenal, and The Journal understands Sunderland have been inundated with enquiries for the 20-year-old. A Scottish Premier League club made a move on Wednesday, while Derby and Watford have also tabled offers for the forward. But O’Neill wants to take a closer look at Noble and, with injuries ravaging his squad, the Black Cats boss is considering handing him an extended role in the third-round test at London Road this weekend. The Sunderland boss always maintained that he would wipe the slate clean and assess his squad based on performances in the opening weeks of his reign, and it is understood that after this weekend’s games he will make key decisions on the future of some of his unsettled players. Noble is desperate for a chance at the Stadium of Light, but knows that first-team football is vital to his development. Former boss Steve Bruce was reluctant to hand him a start in the Premier League because of concerns over whether he can physically impose himself on games – something that would improve with a short spell in the Championship. But O’Neill is understood to have been impressed by his potential and is weighing up whether to give him a chance against Championship side Peterborough on Sunday, before taking a final decision
I think it's great that Noble may get his start in the cup, many of us have thought for a while the lad has done enough in the reserve team against good level opposition (Man Utd and Arsenal among them) to warrant some first 11 game time. Marcus your point is of course valid in pure monetary terms but my angle was more about giving us the fans the opportunity to sample the magic of a cup final or even semi final appearance - still something special in my opinion. Point was also correctly made earlier in the thread that the cup remains a route into Europe, this can leverage players interest in close season, so there is also a sound 'business' logic to the agruement too - but I confess my personal interest is fired more from romance than bottom line.
Sunderland boss Martin O'Neill will do all he can to address the one glaring absence on his CV as he heads into his latest FA Cup campaign. The 59-year-old has never reached the final of the world's oldest club competition as either a player or a manager despite a trophy-laden career. Even at the height of his playing days under Brian Clough as Nottingham Forest took Europe by storm, the FA Cup failed to yield the ultimate reward and that is something O'Neill would dearly love to address as he sends the 1973 winners into third-round battle at npower Championship Peterborough on Sunday. O'Neill said: "As a player, I never won it. We were in the quarter-finals three or four times with Nottingham Forest, one in particular in 1974 when we played at Newcastle and the crowd invaded the pitch. "I don't know whether Mr Clough took it all that seriously or not at the time - of course he did, but you always felt that the league was the big thing. "With Aston Villa, we reached the semi-final two years ago and were beaten by Chelsea. We had a couple of rather rough refereeing decisions, but doesn't everybody? But I have never reached the final, I have never been in it. It's the only competition, as a player, that Forest didn't win."
I remember the excitment in getting to the Semi's a few years back when Millwall beat us. I'd love to go through that again. I remember my mate saying to me not long before kick off that we were only a couple of hours away from one of the best or worst days of our lives (well, our lives supporting Sunderland, anyway). To actually bee in the final must be an unbelivable feeling. I think the league is obviouly more important though. Personally, I want to have my cake and eat it. Come on lad's let's have em both!
It would be great to see our fans taking it serious again and actually turning up for the FA Cup games in numbers...However, we have got to beat Peterborough first of course...
Nothing wrong with giving Noble and any other young 'uns a chance in the cup - maybe keep one or two of the rested senior players on the bench just in case things aren't going well at half-time ! I'll be going so personally am looking forward to seeing the lad and how good he is !
