After a few comments on another thread speculating about players not looking to get injured for Sheffield yesterday and the size of our squad not being able to cope with three games in a week, do people think that the fact cup is starting to become an unwelcome distraction rather than a welcome relief from our league problems? May it do us a favour to get knocked out next week? If people had the choice, would you rather league survival or a wembley appearance? TA
Survival, it's a no-brainer. What we have is a freak season though, with the treble whammy of postponements, a cup run and selling 3 important players in January. On top of that we've got several new players in, but only one of them is good enough for the starting eleven. So the pressure on our squad is huge regardless of whether we get another game at Wembley. The silver lining is the emergence of Poyet, but if we get relegated and he leaves for nothing it will just add insult to injury.
Would I risk survival for a Wembley semi final appearance. No, but if you said an FA Cup final appearance, I must confess at my age id be lucky to see such an occurance again where as seen us in the 3rd tier and get out plenty of times. So for a day of glory I'd risk it. If only I had a crystsl ball
If we were to achieve both it would probably mean that Roland has achieved his aim of balancing the books already. I wonder what difference that would make to investment next season?
Survival. Its a no brainer. League One football next season will be a disaster for the Club. The East Stand Bovril guzzlers will still go, but a whole generation of our young fans will lose heart and interest. There is very little attraction in cold November night home games v Carlisle and Scunthorpe.
European tour would be nice not going to lie. Would love to go to wembley too, be a bit more exciting. We won't go down, I'm adamant of that still. Like I said yesterday, Powell got it very wrong against Leicester but it's Leicester, the best side in the division and the best home record in the Division, didn't expect anything out of it. We're going to stay up...so a nice trip to Wembley to add to that would be very very nice
As pointed out, relegation would be a disaster, the league is the bread and butter so survival all day long. Don't want to be spending my tuesday nights counting the away fans again, league 1 is awful.
Going back to this question. Whether we win or lose on Sunday, we'll have a weekend game and a midweek game every week until the end of the season. Win on Sunday and there's another midweek game squashed in there somewhere. I don't see how losing to Sheff U will help with the fixture congestion. It's there now, it's inevitable, another match really isn't going to be the end of the world. Lose on Sunday and it won't suddenly be a quiet easy run-in with guaranteed survival. It's also not the cup per se that's caused the fixture congestion. That is more down to problems with the Valley pitch and then at Hillsborough (postponing Barnsley home again). If it was Sheff Wed in the QF on Sunday, they would have had a more manageable fixture list in the league. There is the concern about players not giving their all in league matches ahead of a possible Wembley match. I would hope that if the Wembley semi-final did happen Powell would be clear with players that no one's position is guaranteed and if they don't perform in league matches, other players are there to take their place, even for Wembley. In recent years, both Millwall and Barnsley have sustained runs to the semi-finals of the cup and survived in the Championship. Difficult, yes. Impossible, no. Do I want to win on Sunday? Yes.
I would say none of them. The fact that we are starting with one is simply down to the fact that we don't have anyone better. And Cousins surely? Before the recent outbreak of Poyet worship we were all raving over Cousins and fearing a Premiership side would snap him up in the window. Another plus has been the steady improvement of Wilson from a utility player not really of Championship standard to a very consistent player at this level, despite not being played in his best position. Getting back to the OP, not going through against the Blades would be a blow to our morale more damaging than another match to play. But no-one has mentioned what I think is a very real possibility considering our lack of goals - a draw and replay (just what we need!).
So if we don't have anyone better then surely he is good enough for the starting 11? Slightly confused there eddie.
