Warning, lengthy post
.
For as long as I've been on this board there has posters saying all they want is a cup, something to celebrate, our moment in the sun, to get monkey off our back and lose the sexy tag.
There's also been some who want to concentrate on CL qualification at all costs.
Generally speaking I don't have the memory to say which posters are which and I'm not trying to call anyone out as imo both are valid views.
Where it becomes as issue is the lack of appreciation that maybe doing both of those in the same season (Cup and top four) is not something we have had a squad good enough to compete across four competitions.
We should be looking for one or the other.
If the PL form is good you concentrate on top four.
If it's really good you can ease off and go a bit harder on the EL or FA cup. In that order.
If the PL form is spectacular you throw everything at it.
If PL form is OK and we're fighting for 5-8 place you lean more to cups.
I don't think we should be further down than that, but it's football and odd things happen now and again. Worse than 8th then you throw everything at your best chance of a trophy. It's the only thing that will save your season.
Now I don't see that as as big a deal, it would appear many others do.
The PL is the strongest league in the world, it's not easy to rotate or cope with too many injuries.
Unless you are unlucky in the draw the carabao Cup you can probably a chance to rotate and play some kids.
Same with the FA Cup.
EL it depends on how the fixtures are arranged. You may have to play the higher seeded teams early, if so and results don't go your way you can't coast against the lesser teams and need to put out the first team.
Go far enough in the CC and you can be playing in four competitions at once. I think we may have been this year.
In the domestic cup competitions we played city, man utd, Liverpool (twice) and villa.
Against all of them we had selection problems.
There wasn't many opportunities to rotate and hope to progress in these games.
That all adds to a lot of games and a lot of pressure.
We are not the only club to be suffering from this, currently Aston villa and Saudi Sportswashing Machine are trying find the same balance.
Villa missed out on CL and Saudi Sportswashing Machine only got in because of the extra place.
The extra games and the expectation that you can push on are a heavy burden.
A burden that currently only Emirates Marketing Project or Liverpool can bear.
We want success is the cry I have been hearing for a long time, few people will actually quantify what that success is.
I get the impression that whatever we achieve it's always the other one we want.
Some of that comes from those on high, the club don't appear to know what they want half of the time, or how to get it.
Will be interesting to see what they do with the manager and how they approach the CC this season.
We should always be aiming as high as we can, but we also need a huge dose of realism, it's a rigged game, a game we don't have the clout to compete in across all the battlefields.
Pick the battles you can win, glory in those wins and try to grow stronger.
A trophy win that should have united us appears to have divided us even more.
