braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Look at the list of domestic cup winners over the last 15 or so years...
Becoming a regular cup winning side without the financial power from being a CL regular seems utterly unlikely.
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Time for something to cheer us up!
- Thread starter Mulletperm
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Look at the list of domestic cup winners over the last 15 or so years...
Becoming a regular cup winning side without the financial power from being a CL regular seems utterly unlikely.
SteveAWOL
Chris Jones
Indeed, since Spurs last picked up the FA Cup in 1991 it's been almost completely dominated by the usual CL suspects...
ARSEnal: 1993, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2014.
Chelsea: 1997, 2000, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012.
Man Utd: 1994, 1996, 1999, 2004.
Liverpool: 1992, 2001, 2006.
Emirates Marketing Project: 2011.
Everton: 1995.
Portsmouth: 2008.
Wigan: 2013.
Although the League Cup winners list is a rather more motley crew...
Man Utd: 1992, 2006, 2009, 2010.
Liverpool: 1995, 2001, 2003, 2012.
Chelsea: 1998, 2005, 2007, 2015.
Aston Villa: 1994, 1996.
Leicester: 1997, 2000.
Tottenham: 1999, 2008.
Arsenal: 1993.
Blackburn: 2002.
Middlesbrough: 2004.
Birmingham: 2011.
Swansea: 2013.
Emirates Marketing Project: 2014.
jurgen lineker
Radek Cerny
Europa League; 2 birds, 1 stone. Great cup that enhances the club's profile around Europe that will in turn attract more players to the club as well as the promise of champions league football the next season.
As things stand at the minute, it's arguably also the easier route to gain entry into the champions league than finishing in the top four.
There are plenty of benefits to winning the EL that many choose to ignore. Imo, we should begin treating the EL with more respect by prioritising it above the domestic cup competitions.
As things stand at the minute, it's arguably also the easier route to gain entry into the champions league than finishing in the top four.
There are plenty of benefits to winning the EL that many choose to ignore. Imo, we should begin treating the EL with more respect by prioritising it above the domestic cup competitions.
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Craig_J
Mido
Gain entry to the Super cup as well. Potentially a champions league place and two trophies for the price of one!
Craig_J
Mido
In all fairness I always found we were awful at playing balls up to Crouch's head. Many times it would just fly over his head and back to their defence
parklane1
Tony Galvin
Speak for yourself.
parklane1
Tony Galvin
One of the reasons for that was even though he was as tall as a giraffe he was crap in the air.
Mr_B
Niko Kranjcar
"Great cup", really,??? Please find me quotes of players that want to play in the Europa
And easier to win than finishing in the top 4, I beg to differ, what stage were we knocked out this year, you need to play over 20 matches to win this mickey mouse tournament whereas to finish in the top 4, we're pretty much a top 5 or 6 team so all it needs is one of the top 4 to have a bad year.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Really? You don't think money is the primary catalyst behind the top 4 dominating the FA-cup in the last 15 or so years?
And the trend from the FA-cup is looking more and more like it will spread to the league cup as most of the top teams realize the value of that trophy.
Crap at heading the ball with power. But very good at little flick on headers, cushioned headers and stuff like that. Lack of movement around him was more of a problem than his lack of ability in the air when it came to those balls up to Crouch's head imo.
Armchair Expert
Vedran Corluka
Remember that time we qualified for the champions league? That changed the future of the club. The following pre-season we signed Messi, Ibrahimovc, Totti and Buffon.
Oh wait a minute, we didn't. We still had Roman Pavlyuchencko up front or Peter Crouch.
Did Liverpool morph into a re-incarnate of their 80's side this season because they qualified for the CL? Er, no. They didn't quite make it out of the group stages and went shopping in their usual pool of players.
Even if we qualified for the CL for the next three seasons on the trot, we still wouldn't be able to offer bigger wages than those clubs who are currently above us.
The reason we qualified for the CL (or finished top 4 twice to be more accurate) is that we had an outstanding team. To my mind the second or third best in the league.
Unless you have a side of that standard no amount of prioritising, waffling on or dreaming is going to enable anything. Stoke could start prioritising CL and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.
Of course this old chestnut still exists: if we qualify for the CL, do we write off the campaign and field weakened sides to prioritise qualifying for it again in the coming season? We can't win - so lets not fudge about playing strong sides that might be detrimental to our chances. Lets play the kids, get out of there as soon as and concentrate on qualifying for it again so we can again write it off in the next season.
The contradiction between/ folly of having a team not good enough for the CL and concetrating on qualifying for said tournament seems lost on the majority.
I don't understand the hatred for the EL. Its our level; its improving; we are far too brick to ever have done anything in it; the UEFA Cup forms the proudest part of our history; its Euro footy; we take on some big teams. Where I live the attitudes towards it are diametrically opposed to whats being said on here. Maybe English sides are too good for it, we've already qualified once for the quarter finals in about 20 attempts; Besiktas dumped Liverpool out and Dynamo Kiev did the same to Everton. English clubs are not a cut above and the arrogance is fully unjustified.
How did our teams get on in the CL? This myopic fixation with the PL and top four is so corrosive in my opinion. Our football becomes more and more inward looking, more inept, more naive whilst a country like Ukraine can put two teams in the quarters of the EL. Its not because they take it seriously and we dont', its because whatever you say, they are better than us. As are teams from Portugal.
You'll have to excuse the ignorant minority on here who find beating the likes of Inter, Lyon, Fiorentina over two legs in front of the eyes of the continent more exhilirating than a home fixture against Stoke.
Oh wait a minute, we didn't. We still had Roman Pavlyuchencko up front or Peter Crouch.
Did Liverpool morph into a re-incarnate of their 80's side this season because they qualified for the CL? Er, no. They didn't quite make it out of the group stages and went shopping in their usual pool of players.
Even if we qualified for the CL for the next three seasons on the trot, we still wouldn't be able to offer bigger wages than those clubs who are currently above us.
The reason we qualified for the CL (or finished top 4 twice to be more accurate) is that we had an outstanding team. To my mind the second or third best in the league.
Unless you have a side of that standard no amount of prioritising, waffling on or dreaming is going to enable anything. Stoke could start prioritising CL and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.
Of course this old chestnut still exists: if we qualify for the CL, do we write off the campaign and field weakened sides to prioritise qualifying for it again in the coming season? We can't win - so lets not fudge about playing strong sides that might be detrimental to our chances. Lets play the kids, get out of there as soon as and concentrate on qualifying for it again so we can again write it off in the next season.
The contradiction between/ folly of having a team not good enough for the CL and concetrating on qualifying for said tournament seems lost on the majority.
I don't understand the hatred for the EL. Its our level; its improving; we are far too brick to ever have done anything in it; the UEFA Cup forms the proudest part of our history; its Euro footy; we take on some big teams. Where I live the attitudes towards it are diametrically opposed to whats being said on here. Maybe English sides are too good for it, we've already qualified once for the quarter finals in about 20 attempts; Besiktas dumped Liverpool out and Dynamo Kiev did the same to Everton. English clubs are not a cut above and the arrogance is fully unjustified.
How did our teams get on in the CL? This myopic fixation with the PL and top four is so corrosive in my opinion. Our football becomes more and more inward looking, more inept, more naive whilst a country like Ukraine can put two teams in the quarters of the EL. Its not because they take it seriously and we dont', its because whatever you say, they are better than us. As are teams from Portugal.
You'll have to excuse the ignorant minority on here who find beating the likes of Inter, Lyon, Fiorentina over two legs in front of the eyes of the continent more exhilirating than a home fixture against Stoke.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
AE, I agree with you on taking the EL seriously.
Your arguments on the CL are rather straw-man like though. I don't think anyone is saying that qualifying for the CL once completely changes a team's fortune or morphs that team into a much better team?
Also Stoke could start prioritizing the CL and it wouldn't make a difference. But people are talking about prioritizing (domestic) cup competitions over the league. Do you think it would make any more of a difference for Stoke if they started doing that?
Your arguments on the CL are rather straw-man like though. I don't think anyone is saying that qualifying for the CL once completely changes a team's fortune or morphs that team into a much better team?
Also Stoke could start prioritizing the CL and it wouldn't make a difference. But people are talking about prioritizing (domestic) cup competitions over the league. Do you think it would make any more of a difference for Stoke if they started doing that?
Armchair Expert
Vedran Corluka
Its not straw man though is it. I made the point that we could qualify 4 years on the trot, and our wage budget still wouldn't allow us to attract and pay for players currently playing for those clubs above us. Arsenal have qualified for the CL 20 years on the trot, only once reached the final, have been miles off the pace in the PL for years and only marginally ahead of us in recent times - and to an extent relying on us to drop points (which we do).
With reference to Stoke and priotising. I think Stoke could prioritise competitions and it would have no effect. Exactly in the way prioritising domestic cups has/would have no effect for us. We can prioritise the FA Cup, get drawn away to Chelsea in the third round and thats that. Hence, prioritisng a few cup games is a bit irrelevant: the likelhood is still that we won't be in the competition very long anyway. Even a full strength in form Spurs side is well capable of losing at ANY PL ground. Priotising cup games as such won't be detrimental to league performance. I would also suggest that since we have been playing one game a week our form as been the worst it has been all season.
The point about qualifying for the CL and then not competing in it in order to enhance our chances of being there again next year also isn't straw man. Its a valid point and one the requires consideration: the nature of the anti-EL lots views means when logically applied the same must be true of CL, or are the games shorter? By the logic of European cup runs damaging league performance the the following is true:
-European cup runs damage league performance
-League performance cannot be sustained whilst competing in EL/CL
-We need a season out of the EL to focus on CL qualification
-It is unlikely then that we could qualify for the CL in two successive seasons, due to need to balance PL and European football
-An unbroken run in the CL is required to expand wages budget and attract players
-We wont be able to achieve an unbroken run in the CL because European cup runs are incompatible with success in the league
-The whole exercise is futile
Thats just extrapolating the anti-EL argument logically over competitions and time. The argument that you have to play so many games to win the EL is also irrelevant when applied to our case: we have rarely gotten to the latter stages of the tournament.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
You also made arguments about the results of ourselves and Liverpool qualifying for the CL once without immediate repetition. You seemed to make points as if someone was arguing that just getting into the CL once was the ultimate goal/solution...
You don't necessarily need to match the budgets of those ahead of you to move up. Being smarter, at least short term, is possible. We're now in a good position with what looks like a good production line of younger players coming through, and plenty of young players with a lot of potential already in the first team. It's not impossible for us to push on from there.
Under Levy we're clearly trying to build the club, doing so rather gradually. The new stadium probably won't be enough to close the gap, probably even a new stadium and CL participation together doesn't completely close the gap to Man United. But it makes it a lot easier to compete if the gap is smaller, both CL participation and a new stadium can make the gap smaller.
One of the differences between the CL and the EL is that CL participation would allow us a significantly larger wage budget. That allows for more quality in depth in the squad to deal with the extra games than EL participation does. In fact I think there's a chance that EL participation is actually a below break-even from a financial point of view for a club like ours. The wages for the extra players needed isn't made up for in the extra income. Not saying that for certain, but I think it's at least likely to be close. The profit margins from CL makes that a rather different proposition.
But ultimately I think we agree. We should compete properly in all competitions we're in. League and cup. Most likely we won't be able to establish ourselves as a regular CL qualifier or trophy winner until the stadium is finished, even then it will be challenging. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try, nor that there can't be great benefits from qualifying for the CL.
Armchair Expert
Vedran Corluka
I'll highlight my opinion with an exmaple. Say we had a run of:
Sat Hull (h) League - Weds Juventus (a) CL - Sat - Villa (a) League - Tuesday West Ham (h) FA Cup replay.
What games should be prioritised? In my opinion - the next one. We should do everything we can to win the next game and worry about the following game after. We should play whichever players and for however long it takes to win the game. Why?
There is no guarentee we'll beat Hull. We need to play our strongest side to try and win the game. Prioritising is folly. If we rest players against Hull we may unneccessarily drop points, whilst even with our strongest side we are favourites to lose against Juventus. If players need a rest against Hull, is the same true of the Villa match? Are the layers who played against Juventus unable to compete to a decent standard against Villa? If we field the second string again, we may have dropped 4 points in the league that were winnable against Hull and Villa, and we lost 3-0 to Juventus anyway. Now what to do against West Ham? We have a league match on the following weekend, but we're already dropping out of the league race having dropped winnable points previously. So we prioritise against West Ham, field our first 11 and maybe we win. In the next round we get drawn against Arsenal/Chelsea/Man Utd/Liverpool/Emirates Marketing Project away.
I see rotation not as arbitrary rests for your best players at arbitrary times. I believe we should play our best players for as long as necessary in every single game. I would take them out of the team when they are either in bad form, or they need a rest. Human being are different and as such it is unlikely all will need resting at the same time. They should be rested, as required, regardless of opposition. There are too many variables in football to suggest resting players for certain opposition is the best policy. I think thats why managers like Ferguson would often go into big European games with players like O'shea, Butt, Park, Phil Neville in the side. He always wanted to win the game in front of him. Its the only thing, logically, that makes sense.
If we have a squad of millionaire, international players, they need to be capable of playing against any opposition. Its also the only way to ensure squad players are properly integrated and committed: nothing says second choice like being the 'league Cup/Europa League team. Squad players need the chance to compete for places, the only way they can do that is by having genuine opportunities at playing as part of a first team, in place of the person ahead of them in the squad. Making 11 changes for Famagusta away is in no sense giving players an opportunity: leaving out a tired Bentaleb for Stambouil away to Man Utd, with the rest of the 1st team around him, is giving a second choice player a genuine chance, and is the most effective use of a squad.
Sat Hull (h) League - Weds Juventus (a) CL - Sat - Villa (a) League - Tuesday West Ham (h) FA Cup replay.
What games should be prioritised? In my opinion - the next one. We should do everything we can to win the next game and worry about the following game after. We should play whichever players and for however long it takes to win the game. Why?
There is no guarentee we'll beat Hull. We need to play our strongest side to try and win the game. Prioritising is folly. If we rest players against Hull we may unneccessarily drop points, whilst even with our strongest side we are favourites to lose against Juventus. If players need a rest against Hull, is the same true of the Villa match? Are the layers who played against Juventus unable to compete to a decent standard against Villa? If we field the second string again, we may have dropped 4 points in the league that were winnable against Hull and Villa, and we lost 3-0 to Juventus anyway. Now what to do against West Ham? We have a league match on the following weekend, but we're already dropping out of the league race having dropped winnable points previously. So we prioritise against West Ham, field our first 11 and maybe we win. In the next round we get drawn against Arsenal/Chelsea/Man Utd/Liverpool/Emirates Marketing Project away.
I see rotation not as arbitrary rests for your best players at arbitrary times. I believe we should play our best players for as long as necessary in every single game. I would take them out of the team when they are either in bad form, or they need a rest. Human being are different and as such it is unlikely all will need resting at the same time. They should be rested, as required, regardless of opposition. There are too many variables in football to suggest resting players for certain opposition is the best policy. I think thats why managers like Ferguson would often go into big European games with players like O'shea, Butt, Park, Phil Neville in the side. He always wanted to win the game in front of him. Its the only thing, logically, that makes sense.
If we have a squad of millionaire, international players, they need to be capable of playing against any opposition. Its also the only way to ensure squad players are properly integrated and committed: nothing says second choice like being the 'league Cup/Europa League team. Squad players need the chance to compete for places, the only way they can do that is by having genuine opportunities at playing as part of a first team, in place of the person ahead of them in the squad. Making 11 changes for Famagusta away is in no sense giving players an opportunity: leaving out a tired Bentaleb for Stambouil away to Man Utd, with the rest of the 1st team around him, is giving a second choice player a genuine chance, and is the most effective use of a squad.
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Armchair Expert
Vedran Corluka
re: the bit in bold. The nature of the anti-EL brigades argument makes consistent CL participation an impossibility. Applying their own argument to the situation means its a self defeating objective.
I don't really understand why you've started mentioning wages. I understand that more income could facilitate paying more wages to players. There are issues though:
1) that we still wont be able to financially compete with thos above us is a salient point: we already pay more than 14 teams in the league and less than 5. That wouldn't change. In what sense then, if we are directly equating wages to success, have we improved our situation? The only thing that would be achieved, applying that idea logically, is that we would secure 6th place. The teams above us retain the muscle.
2) Of course to arrive at this point is impossible anyway: you have already said one season in the CL wont make a difference, and nobody has said it would, you have pointed out. How then, do we combat the league/european football conundrum? Also, we have to defy the odds for 4-5 seasons running in order for us to acheive this wage growth you are talking about. If WBA or Stoke aim to finish above us foe the next 5 years as part of their plan we would think it a serious and lucid objective? They may do it one year. But for 5 years? You're own correleation drawn between wages and success suggests they cannot.
3) CL football does result in more income. Is this income not partially eaten up by bloated wages for the current staff? Is it not conceivable that CL qualification could result in our current crop earning more money, whilst we still don't have the money to compete with the likes of Arsenal or Chelsea for Hazard or Sanchez? In that case don't we just stay where we are, but paying more money to tread water?
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braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Well seeing as I'm in disagreement with the "anti EL-phalanx", accepting your terminology. No surprise I'm not convinced by an argumentation based on theirs.
I mentioned wages because you said "logically applied the same must be true of CL". But wages make up a difference there, meaning that the situations might not be the same.
1) It's more difficult to overcome a larger financial gap than to overcome a smaller financial gap. At this point I'm assuming you will point out that you already know this? But why then ask how we've improved our situation if we make the financial gap smaller?
2) Well, first of all - as I've also already pointed out (and as you apparently already know) CL brings more money. If spent wisely that money can help keep players around and sign new players. That can help the process.
Secondly growing as a club doesn't have to be continuous in a linear fashion to be worth doing. A year in the CL can raise our profile. Even if we didn't get back in the next year. Getting into the CL twice in 3 years with a gap in between could further raise our profile, help get us better players, increase our income from sponsorship deals etc.
Not quite sure how the correlation between wages and success is "my correlation"? What I've said repeatedly in the past is that it's not a perfect correlation, although it's quite clearly a statistically significant and relevant correlation. Based on wages we can predict that Man United won't go down next year, and that WBA won't win the league. We'll be right just about every single time. But we can't predict who will go down or who will win the league with anything close to that accuracy, in fact our predictions will probably be worse by a lot. As we've seen repeatedly a smaller club can overcome the financial gap and finish ahead of richer clubs, even doing so several years in a row. This requires smart work over time (imo), a lot of that ground work has already been done at Spurs (again, imo).
We're in a situation where we in the relatively near future will see an increased turnover from the stadium project. Combine that with increased earnings from CL and the potential effects could be really good.
WBA and Stoke? That seems very difficult for sure. But why those examples?
If Everton set a goal of overtaking us somewhat consistently, I think it could be done. Difficult, but possible.
3) Yes, to an extent. But that, at least in theory, should also allow the club to have better players. Resulting in a better chance of doing better in the league and in the domestic cups (see recent cup winners). We would still be at a disadvantage, at least until the stadium is built and more or less paid for. But it's still possible to compete, and much easier if the gap is smaller than if the gap is greater. We still got Bale, Modric, Carrick, Berbatov, VdV, Lloris etc with a smaller budget. A budget closer to those ahead of us makes those excellent deals more likely. Just like Arsenal got Sanchez despite spending less overall than some of their competitors, but they had the chance to do that because the financial gap between them and the top clubs was small enough.
One of the ways we can overcome the financial gap that remains is by working with a better long term focus and by having an excellent production line. But those things will be more likely to overcome a smaller financial gap than a larger financial gap. (As I'm again thinking you will know point out that you already know).
Armchair Expert
Vedran Corluka
re: the bolded bit. But i was talking in terms of amounts of matches and so the point is valid, whilst in that particular context, wages is not.
Extra wages won't result in a bigger sqaud. There is a ceiling. Extra wages won't result in fitter players, able to play more games: they are still just humans. So extra wages won't negate the effects of fatigue - the reason people are against our competing in in the EL - and thus, whilst your argument isn't a straw man, you did introduce a misnomer - which i addressed regardless.
Your initial statement was:
which was false. Maybe I should've stated that more clearly. It isn't a straw man argument, because by applying the logic of the anti-EL posters reasoning one season is all thats possible. So, i took one season in the CL as the point of departure for my analysis.
And as for your question: WBA and Stoke? That seems very difficult for sure. But why those examples? i took these examples because i assume the % difference in relative incomes is similar to the disparity between ourselves Emirates Marketing Project, Chelsea etc.
As for our profile being raised by being in the CL - I'll have to go on my own previous experience. I didn't see any long term benefits from our season in the champions league. I understand you are also pro-EL, but you engaged my point, and I can only debate on what you put in front of me.