Having just seen Milwall draw Blackburn at home in the 1/4 final of FA Cup,it makes me even more depressed to think that it could and should have been us. I noticed Chelsea put out a really strong team earlier No taking it easy there. I know survival is paramount,but a 1/4 final would have been great for moral and done us no harm.
Thats not how it works. Even if we'd have got through theres no guarantee of who we would have faced at that point. Chaos theory. Plus, the cup is a huge distraction in our current status. Theres a time and a place for a cup run. We arent a giant that can support a ridiculous second string or a bunch of minnows playing their plucky little hearts out.
agreed with beef - if we'd have beaten the hatters we'd have drawn man city or united away in the 5th round
Our run in the Carlin Cup was enough for me. Better than we have done in any cup for a while. Would rather concentrate on the league
thanks for the slaphead there yarco of course you are correct, but you've ignored the point i was making. i'm glad we are out personally
Why oh why would you rather be out of the cup,than facing Blackburn at home in 1/4 final. I cannot get my head round this.we could have been one game away from Wembley semi final. I know this is all hypothetical,but if we have no ambition to progress why do we enter the competition?
good question as to why do we (and a lot of prem teams) enter it then field under-strength teams. will be interesting to see Reading's line up tonight - do they go full stength or a weakened team for this season i'd like us to focus 100% on the league now, we had a good cup run in the league cup
Yarco, I think it's all relative to our position and form. We've not won a league game since before Christmas, and whilst we've steadied the ship in the last couple of games, it wouldn't take a lot for us to end up in a full-on relegation dogfight. For now, myself (and probably others) would rather we concentrated on the league, and reach mathematical safety with games to spare. A cup run would stretch our resources (players) further, and the distraction could cause problems, take a look a Swansea vs Liverpool. Whilst Swansea are in a position where they can afford to write off a league game, we, as of yet, aren't. Had we been on 35 points, won 2 or 3 games since christmas, and scoring more freely, then yes, I'd be questioning why nobody wanted a cup run, but in our current circumstances, I'd rather we weren't involved. On balance, I feel the morale benefits you see are outweighed by the risk of injuries to key players, and fatigue. If Holt, Bassong, etc got injured in a cup game, we'd be questioning why we didn't put a weaker side out. As to why we actually enter the cup to begin with, I'd assume it's a requirement of league registration, with fines, etc, for not taking part. We'd also get massively slated in the press for pulling out, and we make a small amount of money for fielding a reserve side in the first couple of rounds, so it isn't too bad for us, it's the later rounds that put a greater strain on the team.
Or had we beaten Luton, gone on to beat Millwall, we could have ended up playing Arsenal if they had beaten Blackburn
We could have drawn Luton, but we could have drawn anyone else. Would have been a completely different draw because that's how the universe works. Conditions of the draw would have been different. Maybe I'm too scientific, but it's like the people that say "I was only one number out on the lottery!" No, no you weren't.
