I loved that result. I don't like Leeds being happy for any reason. I'd rather Chelski win the Cup than them. We'd never hear the fooking end of it if they won... They'd get their, "We're the Champions of Europe! Premier League here we come! We'll finish 4th in our First Season back up there!"... And all that boring bullshit. I'm glad Chelsea knocked the stuffing out of them. Dicks.
Given my view on our involvement in the cups am I ok to stick with my original comment? Incidentally, FA Cup, play the bloody reserves when we get there, Cairney is only just back thanks to us taking the tin pot trophy seriously when we've got a promotion campaign to concern ourselves with. Plus you've got Hobbs just back from a serious one, and Bruce, McShane, Elmo, and Aluko (plus others?) carrying niggly things that are seeing them going off in games or struggling late on. A nice weekend off after Xmas and New Year is what's needed.
Good post, but I would want us to go for a good Cup run eventually. I don't like the, "We have no time" sort of excuse for not giving a lot of effort in the Campaign because really, if we don't go for one now, when will we? We can't now because we're chasing promotion, and if we end up in the EPL, we'll probably be trying to stay up so there's always an excuse. I'd rather go for the F.A Cup, more financially beneficial and it's later on in the Year.
My basic guide is: 1) if we have a realistic chance of winning the Cup then go for it, and I don't mean "we could get drawn against L2 sides all the way to the final", I mean preseason you can say winning the cup is a possibility. So as a lower end PL side you'd look at the League Cup and say that the big clubs will be focused on Europe, the next batch will be trying to get there in the League, so there's 8 or 9 clubs where it's a low priority. The rest of us could go for it early on, and if we get drawn into a relegation battle then we abandon the cup because we can do that nice and early and recover the League. If we're expected to struggle you'd play it the other way and abandon the League Cup, but consider the FA Cup once January came if you weren't in the mire. 2) Then as a non PL club you do it: a) If you need the money - obvious reasons b) If you're going to be mid-table you may as well give it a go to have some excitement. Considering how negative I come across about the cups at times I'd actually have liked us to have a few runs over the years, looking back from now to the D3 promotion season: This year - abandon both. Priority from day 1 has been the promotion campaign and we're expected to challenge by fans. Take no risks. Last season - would have gone for the League Cup providing we'd played down the chances of promotion. Our squad was always too small for that but a Cup run was doable as we had a good first 11 or 12. Once January arrived and expectations were higher due to League position and small squad I'd have skipped the FA Cup. League Cup if we'd been in the semis I'd have kept going just because we'd have to play them anyway, and it would only be one additional game for the Final if we got there, and doing so would ease the pressure on getting promotion. 10/11 - Both cups for as long as possible. Nothing was expected in the league, relegation should never have been a threat and we needed the money. 09/10 - chuck the League Cup to focus on trying to stay up. Go for the FA Cup as we needed every penny we could get as quickly as we could get it. PL survival was essential but we had a humongous squad of equally substandard players to cover the games. 08/09 - drop the League Cup to stay up, go for the FA Cup because we were comfortable at Xmas (I know it got tight, but I'm trying to assess without hindsight) 07/08 - go for both cups and prepare the squad for promotion the following season (that's actually what our January transfer window looked like we were trying to do) 06/07 - go for both, second season in the division, wasn't expecting Parky to be so bad. 05/06 - skip the League Cup, promoted 2 divisions in as many years so stabilise. Can't remember our January position to say about FA Cup. 04/05 - play the League Cup, new in L1 and not expected to challenge but had resources to make sure we stayed up in mid table. FA Cup play 1st Round then call time by 2nd Round, by then it was obvious we were going for a double promotion and had key players (eg Elliott) who we shouldn't be risking 03/04 - expected to challenge for promotion so skip League Cup, obviously challenging from early so also skip FA Cup even at 1st Round stage.
If I lived another 50 years and never saw City in the top-flight again, but I saw them win a cup, I'd be happy. If I saw us get promoted this season, stay there for 50 years and never win a cup, I'd die dissatisfied. The Premier League was ****, and it's only got worse in the few years since we were relegated.
As far as the 3rd round FAC game with Orient is concerned i expect Bruce to play ALL the squad players. We shall still be far too strong for the snooker boys. A chance of another home draw against maybe Accrington/Rotherham or Oxford/Sheffield Utd in round 4. As for tonight and TWS, they were dire in the end. Pace exposed them and they are slow both at the back and up front. I expect TWS to be well tired by the time they play us.
I was trying to stay away from being cynical. But he pretty much did just blow me out the water with that one!
I think Leeds were lucky that last night Chelsea were clearly suffering from their trek across the world to play a meaningless game. If they hadn't, and Chelsea had been on top form the score could have got embarrassing
No. I think the Championship is a ****e league to be in. Obviously you have a better chance of winning the lower down you are but there's too many anti-football negative teams and 90% of the referees in this league actively promote that kind of football which makes it worse. In the PL you generally get beat because the other team were better, not because they had a lot of convenient head injuries every time you went forward.
