Win the League Cup all day long for me, those days of Poch and Ronald taking us to challenge the best of the rest are long gone as have those quality players that we managed to unearth and just hanging around the lower half of the PL is definitely losing its appeal. Yes we may well pull off a shock result now and again but it's quickly forgotten as it only gains 3 points but a cup win at Wembley is momentous and even the paint pot trophy regurgitates special memories. There's nothing like celebrating a goal (and a win) at the national stadium. Plus the Skates have never won it! I read that Shearer would prefer the League Cup to top 4 for the Toon!
As someone said earlier, the chance of winning a cup rarely occurs in SFC's history. Take the hit of relegation as I am sure SFC will return a stronger and better team, ready to compete again in the PL!
Unless we find another Markus or our owners also own a country I can’t see us competing in the PL. Im actually fed up with it now, the continuous losing. When was the last time we thrashed someone? I really don’t mind if we go down, past caring now. Cup all the way!
I wonder what Jones would prefer? I think even if he keeps us up most fans probably still wouldn't like him or consider him a PL manager. Whereas a cup win writes him into our history books forever. In the football world staying up would probably count in his favour more but with his wife n family supporting us I suspect that might swing it in favour of the cup.
This. The obvious comparison is with Lawrie Mac, who took us down in his first season, but who became a club legend when we won the Cup 2 years later. I suspect the status might have worn a bit thin if we’d languished in Div 2 longer than we did, but fortunately we didn’t.
If we were sat in a pub and you said that based purely on aesthetics, then i'd be over the moon and buy you a pint! Not sure how to take that, given it's based on conversations on a faceless forum!? I'm taking it as a compliment none the less... either that, or i type like a little chav!!
Nearly half of you is a bunch of crazies. Love to win a cup, but not at cost of place in EPL. Have you all forgotten how long it took us to come back up last time....and we ended up in League 1 and only escaped because the gods smiled on us and gifted us St Markus.
It took less time that it's been since 76, not counting the JPT. Gotta be a cup, Premier League is **** anyway!
Easily win a cup and go down. The last couple of seasons of following Saints have been almost as miserable as the seasons circling the drain in the Championship, the only thing we don’t have is administration to worry about which in fairness is significant. For most of my life bar a golden period a few years ago most of my experience of Saints has been making up the numbers in the Premier League, rarely achieving anything other than just about surviving. I have never seen us win a major trophy (sorry JPT), if we won the League Cup but went down it would still rank as our most successful season in my life time imo. In reality I think we are highly likely to be going down without a trophy anyway, so it would be nice to have something worthwhile to look back on.
I actually think that staying up this season is pretty crucial in SRs plans for how they want to run us. Going down would presumably see a bit of a reset on that one whereas if we were to stay up, hopefully we could push on a bit into next season and take some steps up the table. I don't see that it would just delay the inevitable relegation to the following season. That's how I felt under Gao, but not SR. Yes SR have got some pretty crucial things wrong, but they undoubtedly have a plan of how to improve us (and make money) and staying in the league seems pretty crucial to that. That's why I've voted stay in the league.
How enjoyable has the PL actually been in recent seasons though? I really don't get what it is that makes it so vital that we stay in this league. 7 years not a long time either, a lot shorter than our 47 since our (only) cup win! Our trophy haul is pathetic for a club who have spent the majority of last half century in the top flight. Pompey equalled our entire trophy haul in just 7 seasons in the top flight. Did anyone old enough to witness both really prefer the match v Swansea in 2018 than v United in 76?
But why would being in the championship make it any better? OK no VAR I'll give you that but our trophy haul isn't going to improve down there so it will be a lower standard all round without the glamour games that the PL provides. We may be more competitive but more enjoyable? I'm not so sure. I accept that different people have different ideas about what they want from football but I really don't understand the appeal of dropping down a division.
I wasn't really arguing for my preference for the Championship though (I've mentioned in that more detail lots of times!) just my answer to the question in this thread. Like you say no guarantees, same as if you choose the stay up opton we could get relegated next season anyway. Relegation is always going to be a possibility at a club like ours so I'd prefer to actually win something while we're in the top flight. I personally don't care about so called 'glamour games' against the big clubs as the opposition don't interest me at all. I'm there to watch Saints not other teams. Plus, there's no bigger glamour than a cup final imo.
Just can't understand anyone accepting relegation. The disappointment of that lasts a lot longer than losing a cup final. And would we come back up? Pompey won/bought/swindled an FA Cup and where are they now?
