If we won the Europa League I'd happily wave the Premiership goodbye with a smile on my face. However, the very strong likelihood is that we would not win it, but a long run (which may be just the group games) in the Europa League may indeed cost us Premiership football. A risk not worth taking unfortunately.
What? You think these players only signed because we went out? Hernandez had taken his medical before we went out. Wasn't Diame already on the cards? And no one had a frigging clue about Ben Arfa or Ramirez until late on Monday night. Don't see how you could come to that conclusion.
I can understand that, but building towards Premiership stability has to be the best thing for the club in the longer term, I believe. However, I've always been a little risk-averse. As I said, if the club doesn't prioritise the cups, I'll be gutted. Need at least some excitement when we hit mid-table mediocrity
Just burying your head in the sand I'm afraid. Its an inferior competition and players and right thinking fans dont want to be associated with it.
Yep, and we could have had a performance like the first half at Villa Park, which was indeed a stronger side, on paper anyway, than the one we put out against Lokeren.
But we'd have had a go, taken it seriously. To put out a second string is an arrogance we haven't earned.
There is no reason for this competition to exist. There's little money in it (comparatively). The bigger clubs don't want to be in it. Chelsea were almost apologetic when this was the only trophy they won one season. When Bruce talks about great european nights, hes talking about the european cup (as it was), not this ****ty thing. Our matches weren't even televised because they knew no-one outside of Hull would be bothered to watch. Get over it.
Europa is too risky for our club, lack of depth and experience. Better off dealing with a domestic cup that a league campaign is suited to. Less games, specified window where everyone is playing, less travelling.
basically the Champions League = FA Cup............ Europa League = League Cup we know which one everybody is bothered about
The thing is, in all honesty, the biggest single benefit to being in the Europa League is the chance to qualify for the Champions League should you win it, we were never going to win it with the squad that we had at our disposal, so, this season, I'm more than happy for us to go out in the early stages, next season however will be a different matter.
Had Manchester United qualified instead of us, they would have put the same side out that they did against MK Dons, and got beaten by Lokeren as we did. Other than the embarrassment of being beaten by a "lesser" team, do you really think they would be bothered about going out?
