And it's not even subtle. The number of early challenges they had that went pretty much unpunished was laughable.
You are right. And I am right. The two points are not mutually exclusive.
100%. Ref gave us fuck all the entire game.
It was a pen. But the game should've ended already.
The ref should've blown already.
Absolute sickener. Ref gave them the time they needed to win the penalty. Fucker screwed us all night. #nufc
They all seem to favour the big sides, look at the PSG games. Every effort is made to give them the late competition matches they want to see
The game? I couldn't be arsed with it, it's so much like the first one, and I got sick of that by half way through. That whole hub style open world is pretty played out for me now, they're all the same. Infamous Second Son spoiled me
Never speak that name 🤣
🤣
The only Ayatollah I recognise is The Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah! #WWE #WCW #AEW
I do too. Pretty sure I covered that.
Yep. Cynicism will only get you so far. Who thought we'd beat arsenal and then Liverpool in the cup last year? But hey, we did. It's not impossible.
Once Barca are done knocking us out, THEN we can all be miserable as fuck together can't we? 🤣
Exactly. We probably we won't, but we *could* which is why it's so important.
The City game was important, but it's gone now so it's nothing to us because we're out.
I read it again. I did say almost. That's a world of difference. And cup finals or title deciders were exactly what I had in mind when I chose that wording. We won't be playing any of those this season now.
I said almost. Not any. Or I certainly meant to.
Fact is, it's the biggest game in front of us just now.
That's true of almost any game. It can't win us the tie but it can lose it. It is not small.
I do think they are focusing more on the ECL than anything else, money and progress enhances future rewards through the UEFA rankings coefficient or whatever that bollocks is.
So now it's the DoF's role to make it happen regardless, when it's strategically right for the club. Rafa Benitez was similarly wilful and you can't always give them their way.
If we lose it we're as good as out, so I'd say it was pretty crucial. Whether it's bigger than a cup final is an easier argument. It's not.
Barcelona.
Couldn't give a flying fuck about the mackems.
Then you look at our scoring and league position in the ECL; we have performed to expectations. Unlike the domestic competition.
These are symptoms of the problems we were discussing though. And we've still done well in the ECL compared to the league
We're as likely to win the champions league as the premier league: we aren't usually too bad against top sides (city excluded) while
Defensive teams blunt us.
If we deprioritise Europe, there's little point chasing extra places in the league, which unless you're going to win it (we aren't) is about qualifying for the thing you want to deprioritise. That's a very hard sell to players.
No I agree, we have given everything equal priority. In a normal season that's fine, but in seasons when we are in Europe it's too much.
So in European seasons we'd be best de-prioritising cups, but in no-Europe seasons go for everything.
*Europe itself
I think the problem is that itself is the step too far. We are going to yo-yo wildly until we stabilise revenue and bulk out the squad with quality
Then the season following we get overwhelmed again or people kick off about our failing to win the one thing we concentrated on. There's no magic bullet here and no coach in their right mind would be see to follow this strategy
For what?
Marcelino a step too far for even you? 🤣
