Rubbish. Both of the semi final games we lost we could have easily won. We were 2 goals ahead in the city one and level on away goals. Had we scored another it was gsme over. We unfortunately lost the Utd one because Rom had an off day. We had enough chances.
The point was we played games that mattefed. Games that were genuinely tense and exciting because of what was at stake.
I guess thats the difference. I just can't get that excited over meaningless league games. If we are chasing 4th like we were under Martinez first year then every game is tense, every game matters.
When we are just making up the numbers I find it hard to care that much but I do accept it is different when watching live.
I remember us winning trophies and any manager who comes close to making that a reality is doing well. I don't remember meaningless league games.
You must remember diffrent semi finals to me mate because losing them were the most predictable thing I've ever seen. We only even competed at Wembley against Utd because the players ditched the normal style and went rougue. Could of easily won you say? Well we didn't did we. You talk about being two goals ahead at City, at no point whatsoever was I confident that we'd win. Martinez didn't do defense mate, so it was only a matter of time before we conceded at least a brace. Honestly? I thought we'd scrap it to extra time before Man City beat us. We were never gonna win that game, nothing unlucky about it. The better team derservedly won on both occasions, I won't pretended we were unlucky or robbed to make myself feel better. Man Utd were terrible at Wembley and still beat us on the day, what does that day about us?! Sure we had chances to win, didn't take them, didn't derserve to win, the end.
You say we had games that you think mattered more. Well with the greatest of respect, so what! we never actually won a game that "mattered" under Martinez did we?! We lost all of them and were never really in it but were just there to round the numbers up sadly.
I'll except games were always tense under Martinez, because we could be 3-0 up and cruising but I'd be waiting for that spanner to make a ludicrous couple of substitutions and cost us the game. Games were tense in a bad way because they were close running things even when were on top as a direct result of Martinez's playing style.
I don't like us making up the numbers anymore then you do but it's a hell of a lot better then playing in the championship which is were we would of been had Martinez got a fourth season. I want us winning trophies again too mate, but I want the real thing. Not a mirage sold to us by a smiling charlatan who won't ever win us anything or ever come close.
You talk about memorable games under Martinez, there's far more memorable games that I can remember for bad reasons then good. Any game of significance we bottled and all his "achievements" were comfortably outdone by Moyes. Couple of semi finals? Yeah Moyes did that and got to a final once (still not an achievement), Martinez finished 5th? Moyes did that a bunch of times and got 4th once. The difference is finishing 5th wasn't a fluke with Moyes. Honesty, you talk about games that mean somthing. Truth be told I don't rember a single game we played off the top of my head that we played to get to either of those semi-finals even though I went to all of them. That's quite telling no? Not all that memorable really. Oh I'm sure if I looked it up, loads of memories of the games would come back but off the top of my head all I rember about both semi-final days was that I felt defeat was inevitable and I wasn't at all surprised at full time either at the Etihad or at Wembley.