davek
Player Valuation: £150m
It is. If they get off to flier against them next week they'll collapse. They got it as badly wrong as they could in the first leg, I don't see them doing any worse than drawing next Tuesday in the return.
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ftk43
Player Valuation: £6m
I'm all for finishing in the bottom half a couple of years if the point is to build a squad able to compete at the top few years down the line, but to make cups our priority because the league is too crowded? That's suicide in modern football!
Ask a talented player from outside of UK - 'There's two teams in England with more or less equal offers for you, you might be a regular starter for both of them. One of them finished 6th, 7th and 5th in the recent seasons, and the other one's been 11th, 14th and 10th but they've won a cup two seasons ago - whose offer are you interested the most?' I reckon i know the answer in most cases. And i don't think if Lukaku will set his mind on leaving - a cup, even the fa cup - is going to make him change his decision.
Only real value of winning the cup is making us feel good for a while - like Wigan fans felt 2,5 years ago. It's not a stepping stone to more success, it has no other meaning in this day and age - and i'm not a fan of this - but it's true.
And about this years League Cup - why do we have to throw away games in the league to increase our chance of winning it? Start the strongest 11 players possible in the league AND in the cup - that can be enough.
Ask a talented player from outside of UK - 'There's two teams in England with more or less equal offers for you, you might be a regular starter for both of them. One of them finished 6th, 7th and 5th in the recent seasons, and the other one's been 11th, 14th and 10th but they've won a cup two seasons ago - whose offer are you interested the most?' I reckon i know the answer in most cases. And i don't think if Lukaku will set his mind on leaving - a cup, even the fa cup - is going to make him change his decision.
Only real value of winning the cup is making us feel good for a while - like Wigan fans felt 2,5 years ago. It's not a stepping stone to more success, it has no other meaning in this day and age - and i'm not a fan of this - but it's true.
And about this years League Cup - why do we have to throw away games in the league to increase our chance of winning it? Start the strongest 11 players possible in the league AND in the cup - that can be enough.
WarringtonBlue
Player Valuation: £8m
This thread should be closed. It's the same arguments every day. People get more entrenched in their views and more bitter either side.
TheHumbleEgg
Player Valuation: £15m
Ace points, despite me disagreeing a tad.... Y'see I've read people on here state that RM is 'going in the right direction', words to that effect, yes? By that definition I want that direction to be upward and reflected as so in the table, on paper if you will, factually... Perhaps that's shallow, but it makes me feel better...and it makes me feel better at the most base level at times, sadly, especially if we finish above 'them', as said, shallow, I know. I just can't sit there and go 'Belter, we finished 13th but wasn't the footy good at times'...
But in the same way you find it shocking at people being arsed whether they finish 8th or 11th well, I find it odd that you CAN'T be bothered by that because, for me anyway, the table shows progression by the very nature of it being a table and figure based...and a lower finish to me wouldn't suggest that BOB had moved things on much at all...and there's a part of me thinks there's some of the bigger players may think the same.
Totally get what you're saying but I can't go with the 'making up numbers is failure' bit.
But that's the fun of debate I suppose innits...
NO! I disagree with everything you've written and nothing you can say can change that
mythbuster
Player Valuation: £35m
There's no bitterness from those of us who think the gaffer shouldn't be under the pressure he is.
I suppose it's just the digital age. Every arsehole thinks they have an opinion worth hearing.
Yeah, you can include me in that category too
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Those players you talk of will simply go to a club paying their wages. I could see a difference in outlook if they were choosing between a team with a regular chance of top four - a Spurs, for example, but all other teams would be seen as a platform to launch their careers on to the next level.
As for the cup wins: they're an end in itself, not a means to an end and I think you underestimate the appetite for it and how much it does for a clubs profile. You can bet that Klopp will be looking for a trophy ASAP, and the LC will do. Arsenal have put a lot of effort into winning the cups in recent years in order to retain their status.
dannyboy
Player Valuation: £60m
There's no bitterness from those of us who think the gaffer shouldn't be under the pressure he is.
I suppose it's just the digital age. Every arsehole thinks they have an opinion worth hearing.
Yeah, you can include me in that category too
What pressure? He's got a job for as long as he wants it whilst turning in below par performances.
Only thing he's got against him is a few posters on here daring to question the direction he's taking us. I'm sure he's pretty comfortable with that amount of pressure.
I totally get your points. I worry about them myself as well. However, I disagree. That's because I believe that sometimes you have to step back to step forward.
Yes, obviously we all want to win more than we are. But Moyes and Martinez are very different managers, with very different outlooks, and require very different things. Martinez's first season was a crazy outlier of luck to me. He believes that we need verve and flare and youth to actually break into that top 4. (Maybe he's wrong, I'll address that later). Moyes believed in solidifying and building from the back...
Moyes was wrong. Or we would have broken into the top 4. We didn't, and we weren't going to. Martinez has had to implement his entire structure in the past few years, and it is almost the polar opposite of what was in the club for the decade before him. That was extremely unlikely to go perfectly smoothly, and it hasn't. That said, we show improvements from last season in our style and form. We are no longer just wishing for draws as we were last January, but being aggrieved by dropped points at Stamford Bridge.
So what's happening is a complete shift in the makeup of Everton. A shift HAD to occur, as the old ways were proven unsuccessful. Martinez's ideas may be wrong, and we should begin to find that out over the next season or two, but I believe due to the nature of the game, the nature of his ideas, and the man that he replaced we need to be patient during what is fundamentally a rebuilding. It would have been amazing if it was unnecessary, but our vaunted defense left by Moyes was falling apart - Distin fell off a cliff, Howard has as well, Baines is struggling with injuries, and Coleman was never our most solid defender. Obviously Moyes' attack was dire, and we can all agree that has been improved on.
It remains to be seen if Martinez is the right man, but I do think cutting the cord now is simply admitting that our goals are to finish between 5th and 10th for eternity. I want more than that. I want 1st...to do that we need to change who we've been, which may (and has) resulted in (hopefully) temporary regression.
I think you're missing my point (I'm being polite, I know you're missing it).
I'm saying I'd love us to win a cup. Cup or 5th this season? Definitely cup. Cup or 5th next season? Cup again.
I know our roll of honour from memory, I could recite the years of all our trophies, and could do so even before we won our last one. I'd rather not be able to recite them, because there were too many to remember.
My point was that while I know our roll of honour, I haven't got a clue what Sunderland looks like, or stokes, or villas.
If we win the league cup I will be absolutely ecstatic. I'll be on the 6am train from London to Carlisle next Sunday because I'm terrified that we could get to a cup final and they had some mad criteria that stopped me getting a ticket. But if we win it and you ask a southampton fan in 5 years who won the 2016 league cup, I reckon they'll have no idea. That was my point, the romantic idea that everyone remembers the cup winners is a myth.
ftk43
Player Valuation: £6m
So why can't we be a team like Spurs? As a matter of fact we have been for the past 10 years - what has changed?
Klopp's case is entirely different - he has an army of people in the media ready to jump on the bandwagon. And the LC will trigger that.
Arsenal is a Champions League regular, so their cup wins is only an addition to their high league finishes.
If we win the League Cup but do nothing in the League we will fall under the same category as Middlesbrough, Birmingham or Swansea have.
We have never been anything like Spurs.
They have money. We don't. They fire managers at the drop of the hat. We don't. Which is why we've generally been around the same positions. Money and continuity kind of cancel each other out a bit. Now they're sticking with Poch and they're on the up. We are still poor (relative to other PL teams).
Spurs have been kept out by two things: Impatience and the fact that they're not as rich as the other 4(5 LOL Liverpool). We're been kept out by the fact that we are insanely far behind financially. We simply cannot compete on salaries for players that are CL ready, nor can we afford a really solid squad.
We're miles apart, nevermind the positions we've finished in. The situations are unique.
mythbuster
Player Valuation: £35m
Polite reply. Thanks
Just because every Tom, [Poor language removed] and Harry doesn't remember the winners of the cups, doesn't mean it doesn't go down in history.
I'd be as equally surprised if a Southampton fan could tell you who finished first in the 86/87 season.
The whole point of the matter is, I suppose, Is that, I, yes myself, would remember it
Polite reply. Thanks
Just because every Tom, [Poor language removed] and Harry doesn't remember the winners of the cups, doesn't mean it doesn't go down in history.
I'd be as equally surprised if a Southampton fan could tell you who finished first in the 86/87 season.
The whole point of the matter is, I suppose, Is that, I, yes myself, would remember it
So would I
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