Focus should be on the Europa Conference League

[Strokes]

3 hours ago, dannythefox said:

I’d love us to win this but again it won’t be easy I think some think we’ll walk this personally I can’t see it, it will still be tough. Be nice to have our name on the trophy first and its away of getting European football next season even though next season I believe we’ll finish in the top 6.

Of course it won’t be easy, it wouldn’t be worth winning if it was. 

[oadby.fox]

20 hours ago, The whole world smiles said:

The two things aren't mutually exclusive. Very hard to do well in cup competitions with out the momentum that comes from playing well and winning games in the league. 

Doesn’t our FA cup win undermine that claim? Seems to be quite a few other examples as well e.g Chelsea winning the CL in what was a disappointing league campaign for them, Wigan with the FA cup and getting relegated?

 

Obviously doing well in both is better if possible but there are plenty of examples of teams that focussed on one or the other, or perhaps, focussed their efforts on one at the expense of the other. I know a lot of people would also like us to take the FA cup seriously but I really do think that Europe should be our priority now. If Rodgers is to stay then he will have to learn how to win knock-out games in Europe and surely games against the likes of Randers (no disrespect) should help him do that. We are a much weaker side compared to last year and we had a favourable route in the final then as well in the FA cup, I just can’t see us lucking out and going the distance again.

Edited 26 January 2022 by oadby.fox

[TWUKO]

I think despite Rodgers claiming to not know what this competition is, it's one that we should take very seriously.

 

I don't like the fact that some of our fans seem to think we're too good for it. Our European pedigree is very poor by some people's standards. Yes we've done incredibly well to have 3 European campaigns in the last 5 years, more than our previous 50 years combined, so we can't turn our nose up at anything. Plus we don't currently have any other UEFA competition trophies in our cabinet.

 

At present we are struggling and are almost on par with the likes of Brighton, Palace and Brentford, who I'm sure would kill to be in this competition. We're well off competing in the europa league at present and this is highly winnable. Some decent teams left in it, the obvious one being Roma as well as Basel, Feyenoord, Celtic, PSV. On our day we'll beat any of these over 2 legs.

 

In years to come the conference league will seem more common as England get one place awarded to the League Cup winner I believe, so this will filter down to 6th or 7th place in the league, so we'll regularly see teams similar to ourselves or big six teams that have a bad season playing in the competition. Definitely not something to wash our hands of!

[grobyfox1990]

18 minutes ago, TWUKO said:

I think despite Rodgers claiming to not know what this competition is, it's one that we should take very seriously.

 

I don't like the fact that some of our fans seem to think we're too good for it. Our European pedigree is very poor by some people's standards. Yes we've done incredibly well to have 3 European campaigns in the last 5 years, more than our previous 50 years combined, so we can't turn our nose up at anything. Plus we don't currently have any other UEFA competition trophies in our cabinet.

 

At present we are struggling and are almost on par with the likes of Brighton, Palace and Brentford, who I'm sure would kill to be in this competition. We're well off competing in the europa league at present and this is highly winnable. Some decent teams left in it, the obvious one being Roma as well as Basel, Feyenoord, Celtic, PSV. On our day we'll beat any of these over 2 legs.

 

In years to come the conference league will seem more common as England get one place awarded to the League Cup winner I believe, so this will filter down to 6th or 7th place in the league, so we'll regularly see teams similar to ourselves or big six teams that have a bad season playing in the competition. Definitely not something to wash our hands of!

Agreed with your points regarding taking the competition seriously, we are not 'too good' for it, all fans of non-european teams would love to be in our position solely for the occasion of attending games in Europe, the most glamorous part of being a fan IMO.

 

However, i would not take Rodgers' claim that he does not know what the competition is too seriously. He said that in the aftermath of Napoli? I would hope he did not know what the competition was and was solely concentrating on progression in the Europa League.

 

Also i do not think English clubs will take this competition seriously in years to come, if the tournament even lasts that long, you see most (maybe all?) PL clubs rest players for the fa and league cup as well as europa league, whoever they are. The PL is the be all and end all to the clubs.

[CosbehFox]

People have taken Rodgers’ joke literal haven’t they? 

Edited 26 January 2022 by Cardiff_Fox

[The whole world smiles]

13 hours ago, oadby.fox said:

Doesn’t our FA cup win undermine that claim? Seems to be quite a few other examples as well e.g Chelsea winning the CL in what was a disappointing league campaign for them, Wigan with the FA cup and getting relegated?

 

Obviously doing well in both is better if possible but there are plenty of examples of teams that focussed on one or the other, or perhaps, focussed their efforts on one at the expense of the other. I know a lot of people would also like us to take the FA cup seriously but I really do think that Europe should be our priority now. If Rodgers is to stay then he will have to learn how to win knock-out games in Europe and surely games against the likes of Randers (no disrespect) should help him do that. We are a much weaker side compared to last year and we had a favourable route in the final then as well in the FA cup, I just can’t see us lucking out and going the distance again.

Not really, we beat Man United at Old Trafford a few days before we beat Chelsea in the final and Sheff United 5 nil a few days before we won the quarter final against man United. 

 

It's very hard to win games like those against sides like that without taking some kind of form and momentum into them.

 

Wigan is obviously a bit of a freak on a number of levels and I take your point that it goes against my theory but Wigan didn't prioritise the FA Cup over the league far from it although the fans loved it anyone involved in the business side of it knew the league was the priority that year. 

[CloudFox]

Here's a thought:

 

Why don't we the fans focus on the Europa Conference League?

 

Sure, let's do as well as we can in the PL and hopefully defend our FA Cup, but this is European football we're talking about. I can't wait for the Randers games!

Edited 26 January 2022 by CloudFox

[trabuch]

It's a gamble.

[Tanya]

It's a trophy.

 

I will always prioritise the trophy when it's clear we will finish in the squishy, no-man's-land of midtable.

 

 

[sacreblueits442]

On 25/01/2022 at 18:20, grobyfox1990 said:

That’s a great point and I didn’t think of it that way, in terms of a footballers job being more than just match day. They can be unmotivated/shirk off somewhat during training, but for matches, whatever the tournament, opposition etc it needs to be 100% as a given. I suppose it’s similar for me, I switch off during internal non value add time sap catch up calls on zoom. But when the big clients want things done, they have to get done quickly and perfectly at any time it day, otherwise I’m a goner. 

... strangely enough, it is on the training field where they are evaluated  and being late or not showing the required attention in the session could leave you on the bench!!!

Being professional wether in game time or in training carries the same scrutiny.

[Matt_Lcfc]

Unless we miraculously improve in the second half of the season (which I do not see happening) then it is our best shot for getting back into the Europa League. Go all out for it, but it certainly will not be easy; teams like PSV, Roma and Feyenoord will turn us over if we play like we have done this season.

[Aus Fox]

With both Man Utd and Arsenal now out of the FA Cup, we are possibly 5th or 6th favourites for the FA Cup this season.

We are possibly only behind Roma and Marseille in terms of winning the Europa Conference.

and in the league we need to find away of getting above Brighton, Wolves and one of Spurs, Arsenal or West Ham if we want to return to European competition next season.

The league is hard to judge at the moment as we have so many games in hand, especially as the games in hand Norwich, Burnley and Everton are all winnable games.

There is still so much to play for this season and as players return to full fitness, we should be able to rotate the squad a bit more without losing too much quality.

JJs return is such a boost and like a new signing. Fofana should be back soon enough and if by the end of Feb we can line up with a back 4 of 
Thomas Soyuncu Fofana Justin - we are in a far better position than playing Vestergaard, Choudhury and Ndidi at the back.

This also means we can play Ndidi, Tielemans and Maddison as a three in midfield. 
With Daka and Iheancho able to rotate the main striker role the team is looking far better going into the business end of the season.

[Jobyfox]

9 minutes ago, Aus Fox said:

With both Man Utd and Arsenal now out of the FA Cup, we are possibly 5th or 6th favourites for the FA Cup this season.

We are possibly only behind Roma and Marseille in terms of winning the Europa Conference.

and in the league we need to find away of getting above Brighton, Wolves and one of Spurs, Arsenal or West Ham if we want to return to European competition next season.

The league is hard to judge at the moment as we have so many games in hand, especially as the games in hand Norwich, Burnley and Everton are all winnable games.

There is still so much to play for this season and as players return to full fitness, we should be able to rotate the squad a bit more without losing too much quality.

JJs return is such a boost and like a new signing. Fofana should be back soon enough and if by the end of Feb we can line up with a back 4 of 
Thomas Soyuncu Fofana Justin - we are in a far better position than playing Vestergaard, Choudhury and Ndidi at the back.

This also means we can play Ndidi, Tielemans and Maddison as a three in midfield. 
With Daka and Iheancho able to rotate the main striker role the team is looking far better going into the business end of the season.

We've played 20 games. We've literally got to play everybody again apart from Brighton. You could just as easily say the games in hand are against: Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea. 

 

I agree with the basic premise that there is still a lot to play for this season. We are only just over half way after all. 

[Aus Fox]

1 minute ago, Jobyfox said:

We've played 20 games. We've literally got to play everybody again apart from Brighton. You could just as easily say the games in hand are against: Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea. 

 

I agree with the basic premise that there is still a lot to play for this season. We are only just over half way after all. 

You could, although, we have already played Man City twice so the worst you could say is Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd - we took 6 points from the first games against that 3!

I was just going on the three that were postponed, we could easily have won all three (I know we could easily have also lost all three) but, it’s not a stretch to say we beat Norwich, Everton and Burnley - if we had played and won those games, we would be sitting on 35 points and just 3 points behind 4th place - I was trying to highlight the league season is not yet all over in terms of grabbing a European spot.

 

[Aus Fox]

Just now, Aus Fox said:

You could, although, we have already played Man City twice so the worst you could say is Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd - we took 6 points from the first games against that 3!

I was just going on the three that were postponed, we could easily have won all three (I know we could easily have also lost all three) but, it’s not a stretch to say we beat Norwich, Everton and Burnley - if we had played and won those games, we would be sitting on 35 points and just 3 points behind 4th place - I was trying to highlight the league season is not yet all over in terms of grabbing a European spot.

 

Adding we’ve played Man City and Brighton twice and we still haven’t played Everton yet.

[Jobyfox]

15 minutes ago, Aus Fox said:

Adding we’ve played Man City and Brighton twice and we still haven’t played Everton yet.

Oh yes. I'd forgotten we'd played Man  City twice - that's alright then 

[Foxxed]

I wonder how much Brendan can be arsed. His record isn’t great and he said he was ignorant of the competition last time he spoke about it. I’m not sure how well he’ll be motivating the team. If he reverts to form I hope he sticks Braybrooke, Alvez and Madivadua into the mix. I’d love them to get some minutes.

 

 

Edited 5 February 2022 by Foxxed

[Lcfc82]

5 hours ago, Foxxed said:

I wonder how much Brendan can be arsed. His record isn’t great and he said he was ignorant of the competition last time he spoke about it. I’m not sure how well he’ll be motivating the team. If he reverts to form I hope he sticks Braybrooke, Alvez and Madivadua into the mix. I’d love them to get some minutes.

 

 

If Brendan can’t be arsed with this then he needs to Fcuk off now. This may be our last European campaign for a while, I hope went don’t throw it away like we did last season.

[Happy Fox]

Doesn’t winning the FA Cup qualify for the Europa League?

[norwichfox]

1 hour ago, Happy Fox said:

Doesn’t winning the FA Cup qualify for the Europa League?

Yes

[coolhandfox]

7 hours ago, Foxxed said:

I wonder how much Brendan can be arsed. His record isn’t great and he said he was ignorant of the competition last time he spoke about it. I’m not sure how well he’ll be motivating the team. If he reverts to form I hope he sticks Braybrooke, Alvez and Madivadua into the mix. I’d love them to get some minutes.

 

 

Ever considered he was ask the question minutes after his team getting knocked out of the EL and it was just pissed off reaction.

[Foxxed]

1 hour ago, coolhandfox said:

Ever considered he was ask the question minutes after his team getting knocked out of the EL and it was just pissed off reaction.

It seemed an honest rather than angry response

[OntarioFox]

On 26/01/2022 at 11:59, Cardiff_Fox said:

People have taken Rodgers’ joke literal haven’t they? 

If by joke you mean 'pretending he didn't know about the competition when we were dunked into it', can you blame us? We were in a rotten run of form that was mostly caused by shit tactics and substitutions, and had just bottled a competition we considered 'on our level' as fans. If it was a 'joke', maybe the David Brent comparisons are fair, because it was Season 2 The Office levels of not reading the room.

 

I've come around to the idea of giving this a competition a good go, but let's make no bones of the fact that they couldn't even get themselves up for the Europa League, and embarrassed themselves in a few games - especially Warsaw away, which was on a par with Claudio's Alamo at Millwall as one of the worst team performances I've ever seen us dish up. Why would we expect them to suddenly decide Europe is important now the competition we're in is more 'winnable' on paper? 

Edited 5 February 2022 by OntarioFox
they

[CosbehFox]

18 minutes ago, OntarioFox said:

If by joke you mean 'pretending he didn't know about the competition when we were dunked into it', can you blame us? We were in a rotten run of form that was mostly caused by shit tactics and substitutions, and had just bottled a competition we considered 'on our level' as fans. If it was a 'joke', maybe the David Brent comparisons are fair, because it was Season 2 The Office levels of not reading the room.

 

I've come around to the idea of giving this a competition a good go, but let's make no bones of the fact that they couldn't even get themselves up for the Europa League, and embarrassed themselves in a few games - especially Warsaw away, which was on a par with Claudio's Alamo at Millwall as one of the worst team performances I've ever seen us dish up. Why would we expect them to suddenly decide Europe is important now the competition we're in is more 'winnable' on paper? 

I’ve seen plenty of sportspersons use the term ‘I don’t know second’ or ‘second is first loser’. 
 

Everyone acknowledges this as a mentality of a winner. Even when they fail. In fact Mourinho is a king at it. 
 

It was a comment in the same spirit of this. Our fanbase has to be one of the worst for getting their pants in a twist about beige manager interviews. 

[coolhandfox]

53 minutes ago, Foxxed said:

It seemed an honest rather than angry response

I think similar response to people on here, most people said stuff the ECL 5 mins after full time.

 

It took days for people to come around to the idea of us going for it.