@Hucks. Spot on as far as I'm concerned. Also, ask any of our players whether they'd like the opportunity to play in the Europa League. I can just see them queueing up to say "No, not interested" ........... It would be fantastic for them, and fantastic for us. But at the moment, "fantasy" is the more appropriate term.
dunno if we are gonna do any not606 awards this year or not but if we do, can i nominate this as 'post of the season' please?
for my part, i can't see us getting anywhere near a europa league spot this season, but i totally agree that were we lucky enough to qualify, we should embrace it and enjoy every second of it much as fulham and even middlesbrough did not so long ago. its not impossible to have success in that competition. the problem is, it is often to the detriment of league form but these are all things you worry about when you've qualified - not a reason to say 'we don't want to qualify'.
Just listened to it on podcast. It was great to get some recognition of what we have achieved. The thing that struck me most, though, was when they talked about how Norwich had given a chance to the players who got them promoted. I also liked the way they made a distinction between Lambert's inspired team last year and the more disciplined CH team we have now. For anything in the national media about Norwich, I thought it was a very sophisticated analysis.
sunday supplement has long been a good programme. often controversial but always insightful. of course there are some great journos and some ****e ones, but i've wondered before whether match of the day would benefit from having journalists on it to complement the other pundits. won't happen but i think you'd get more debate and more astute assessments.
you never know! personally, i'll just be delighted to stay up - anything else is a bonus at this stage in our development.
I'll be very surprised if after the Man City/Chelsea games anyone is still talking about Europe then!
Europa can be a right burden if you don't treat it right (Ala us) but if you did get there, and your owner decided to invest in a few more Tetteys (Yous could easily attract them with Europa) then it can be a very enjoyable experience Im not enjoying it too much tbh Our last match in the Europa was just awful!!
I honestly think Europa League is ****. We probably won't get the top European nights like the 90s because it's not the same competition, we'll probably get an away tie to a team in Cyprus. It's not a worthy competition in my eyes, it's not particularly enjoyable to watch and stretches a squad, rather be an established Prem team and than enter that competition. For the record I don't think we'll get in it, our best chance was probably through League Cup, but just joining the Europa League debate really.
Does anybody know, if you qualify for the Europa League, are you restricted to your 25 man squad for that competition as well as the Premmier League?
see, this simply isn't true. check out every single europa group and there is at least two, what i would call 'european mainstays' involved. the europa league is a competition which is viewed different ways by different people in this country but if you go anywhere else in europe they adore it and all try to win it - as usual, us english people are slow to take to things sometimes. it needs refining in my opinion - there are way too many games - and i can totally understand why bigger clubs see it differently, mainly cos they feel they should be in the champions league, but for smaller clubs it can be an extremely exciting competition. are you telling me that stoke fans won't be talking about their matches in europe in twenty years time? of course they will. will they talk about their matches in the premier league? not so much. as DM says, we probably won't be having this discussion in two weeks time but my god, if we get a couple of good results from those games then it won't be the europa league we're talking about... it'll be the champions league! dave, you are not restricted to your 25 man squad
I'm with yellow on this to some extent? It is not held with high level of esteem, just look at the attendance figures for the mainstays. It does not have the glamour tha it could. Needs to be redefined. For me it will never have the prestige of the uefa cup as seen as very second rate competition compared to the champions league
i agree in terms that it needs to be redefined and doesn't have the prestige of the champions league (quite rightly to be fair - its the secondary competition) but does that really mean you wouldn't want to qualify for it? i find that ridiculous. we are the only country who dismiss this competition. why are we the only ones who think we are right on this?
I guess I think back to when we qualified for uefa cup and seeing top class sides packed with their own country's internationals. We see those players every week now, it has minimal kudos, many average football fans won't know who stoke Fulham etc payed in the europa, very very different situation to our experience in the 90's. Yes be appy to qualify, but it just doesn't feel special
The season Fulham lost in the final they had some well known opposition in Amkar Perm Basel CSKA Sofia Roma Shakhtar Donetsk Juventus Wolfsburg Hamburg Atlético Madrid but their last venture saw nothing bigger than FC Twente in the qualifying rounds Stoke faced Hajduk Split Thun Beşiktaş Dynamo Kiev Maccabi Tel Aviv Valencia a bit of a mixed bag really but in reality only Valencia are really notable and that was where the run stopped. So I would say if we got the "attractive" ties, and won them, it probably would seem more important, however as long as we could beat the rubbish lot that no-one has ever heard of, that would also be perfectly acceptable
probably, but out of the two of those games i fancy us to get something off chelsea. they've a bit of a fixture pile up as have their league cup Q/F on Wednesday
My point was not that people would not have heard of the teams., but would not remember. I'm guessing you looked the teams up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also I didn't really pay any attention to who Fulham played, for me it was a non event.
