More games, having to play on Thursday nights and then Sundays followed by a midweek game on Wednesday and back Saturday It will catch up with them. I suspect Wigan will start the season pretty slowly, I think they will lack to firepower to trouble the top 2
I agree Remember all the panic when we lost to Burton. People genuinely was calling for Nigel's head. Its madness Cup runs hinder your season when you dont have a realistic chance of winning them. Its alright if your mid table and going nowhere but competing at either the top or bottom of the league then its best to get out asap
Totally disagree ... plenty of examples of teams having good cup runs and it actually benefiting their season ... try Bradford this season for one ...
All I will say on Championship teams and cup runs: Capital One Cup Cardiff - Knocked out 1st round by Northampton (2-1) Hull - Knocked out in the second round by Doncaster (3-2)... After drawing 1-1 at home to Rotherham in the previous but winning 7-6 on penalties Crystal Palace - Knocked out in the second round by Preston (4-1) FA Cup Cardiff - Knocked out 3rd round (1st round they played) by Macclesfield (2-1) Hull - Knocked out 4th round (2nd round they played) by Barnsley Crystal Palace - Knocked out 3rd round (1st round they played) by Stoke
Both mid table prem team with not much else to play for. Neither are going to challenge the top 6 and neither will get relegated. Cup runs offer their best chance of success. Us on the other hand need promotion at all cost. It would be no good to us to stay in this league and have a good cup run
They got their in the end but look how many games and points they were behind at the start of the season. Not every team will have the quality and depth Birmingham had that season. More often then not the Europa League is a unwelcome distraction. Liverpool was offered an Europa league place through the fairplay system but they turned it down. I wonder why that was? No Chelsea have won it English team may start to pay it a little more respect but playing on A Thursday completely ****s up the fixtures for you. Look at us last season. We was 2nd with some momentum 3 points clear of Hull in 3rd. Because of the FA cup they played 3 league games before we played again. When our next game come around they was 6 points clear of us with us having 2 games in hand. We never clawed that back From there our rut started
Porto won the UEFA cup whilst winning their domestic league - the next season they won the Champions league .... top trump.
Again they are a top flight club. Team like Man U, Barcelona and Bayern Munich have the squads to do both
A team in the top division wins a cup as well as their league? Shock horror! That's not the point I was making. The point was, these teams realised that a cup run would just distract from the league. Just looking at the top of the list, Cardiffs first round defeat to Northampton. They made 10 changes between that and their first league game. Teams with a decent shout of promotion really don't care about the cups, which is fully justified in that they all ended up with promotion. Having that extra week off later on in the season could make all the difference, we play 46 games as it is, and just don't have squads big enough.
How about taking it from another perspective ... that not playing your best team in a cup game can seriously impact your momentum and might in fact completely **** up your league campaign ... Huddersfield. This will not be a subject that we agree on so probably no point in further debate ... I played at a decent level myself and can tell you from that I (and everyone I played with including ex-pros) wants to play every game and win every competition - and when you are actually doing well and winning as a team you can't wait for the next game to come along - the last thing you want is to be 'rested' or to not have a game because ou are out of a competition. Heard Grant Holt this morning talking about why he has joined Wigan - prime reason was because he felt that this was his one opportunity to play in Europe and that was 'very exciting' Do find it amusing that the very people on here who dub me 'the pessimist' are also the ones predicting doom and gloom for Wigan because of the distraction of playing in Europe - for me the reason to get in the Prem is to hopefully be good enough to win something and .........play in Europe!!
That happened to us, yes, but the three promoted teams did exactly the same as us (I refer back to Cardiffs TEN changes), so you can hardly say that was the reason for our fall from grace. The reason to get in the Premiership is to stay there, establish ourselves, win a trophy, and compete in Europe whilst playing in the Premier League (see Swansea). NOT to get there, get relegated whilst winning the FA cup, and play in Europe in the Championship
I know the point your making - just don't agree with it ... but then I've also been watching footie a lot longer ... for instance I watched Sunderland beat Leeds United in the 1972 Cup final as a then second division team (Leeds were then the best team in England at the time) and also get promoted in the same year (after the cup final) - and in those days there was no going to penalties for cup replays - you just kept playing (sometimes within the same week) - with much smaller squads than today. I also went down to Filbo to watch Sheff Wed play Arsenal - we were the neutral ground after draws at both of theirs - took 3 replays at ours - the same for Leeds angainst Ipswich. There are always examples to fit theories - it comes down to what you believe and your own experiences - I've alluded to mine in the post before this.
"Never change a winning team" ... so yes I can say I 'blame' it for our 'fall from grace' ... I said so at the time when I saw the team news... Also - Cardiff lost at non league Macclesfield not Northampton (if we are talking FA Cup)- I was driving my daughter back to University solistened to the game - they were totally in control and cruising (despite their many changes) 1 nil up with only a few minutes left - they got beat 2-1 in a pretty amazing ending. I can see why they made changes against non-league opposition I'll admit - the side they put out should have been sufficient and was an opportunity to give a few fringe players a game.
At the time of the Huddersfield cup games quite a few of us called for squad rotation http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/195822-Team-V-Huddersfield http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/191441-Team-V-Huddersfield You cant shoot the manager now for doing something we all would have done ourselves
