I’d much rather win the Europa than finish fourth, or for that matter third or second, in the PL. For that matter, on principle I’d rather we went all out for everything. But probability is a field for a reason. Those involved with sport at the upper levels tend not to take it into account, but teams and especially betters pay for disregarding the field of probability every day. Conversely, understanding probability and acting on conclusions you draw from it will by definition tend to get you the best results you can get. And from a probability point of view, I think it’s quite a safe thing to say that we would be better off playing our first teamers very little in the Europa if our goal is the CL--at least until the later rounds. I would guess maybe the semifinals (which, obviously, we would almost never get to if we didn’t play the first team...). It’s true CL teams play their first teams twice a week as a general rule. But I seriously doubt playing your first teamers twice a week in years you aren’t in the CL will somehow transform them into good twice a week performers. Just the opposite, I think: you’ll increase the chances they get injured. I would rather we don’t just make up the numbers if we do get into the CL. But whether we do or don’t won’t be helped by playing our starters twice a week before we get there. The only thing that will affect, negatively, is our league finish. Then there’s the point that we shouldn’t want to get into the CL until we’re ready to do well there. I couldn’t disagree with that more strongly. If you asked me if I wanted fourth spot this year if it meant getting eliminated in CL qualifying next year, I’d say absolutely. Are there really many who would say otherwise? I just want Spurs to make progress, and that would be progress over not getting into CL qualifying at all.
Unfortunately, all the failed CL teams - like the Goons and City - will be in it too soon. It's a very difficult competition to win!
It really is. My mind will never stop boggling at how a Fazio-captained Seville did it--shortly before he made the mother of all bad career moves . Check that--I think Fazio became captain of Seville after the Europa, and may never have been captain in a single game they played.
They manage despite selling their best players (and Fazio !) every year. To fair to Fazio though, la Liga is a very different type of league and he does know how to handle Diego Costa.
If you look just at the costs of squads (which ought to be some guide to how good teams are), then there are five higher than us in the PL and only two in the Europa. In the last 32 there might be one or two more. But the PL has 38 matches so cream has longer to come to the top and I still think our likely position is 6th if everyone plays to their full potential. To win the EL we most likely just have to beat 3 times who are worse than us and get lucky in the other two ties against teams who at best a little bit better than us. I'd say this evens out the odds a bit.
The way Fazio ended up at the club is a fine example of a Levy mis-step: * Poch wants us to play a high line, and identified Dawson lacks the pace to do so and would be caught out * Hector Moreno was widely tipped to join us, but broke his leg * Mateo Musacchio was identified as the player we needed, but third-party red tape meant Villarreal slapped a huge fee on him * Even though we hadn't replaced him, we sold Dawson - who didn't want to leave * Needing a centre back, we signed Fazio - who lacks the pace to play a high line What gets me is that, as it was clear a deal for Musacchio wasn't going to happen - especially with Villarreal making a legal challenge to get out of handing over a large chunk of the transfer fee due to the third-party red tape - why not just keep hold of Dawson? At the very least we'd have had a settled centre defender with leadership qualities that was popular with the fanbase. A similar thing happened in the summer of 2012, when Levy sanctioned the sale of VDV to free up funds to sign Moutinho...and then Moutinho's fee got inflated by third-party red tape that killed the deal in the water, so we wound up with Clint Dempsey instead.
