Boro managers DO NOT chuck the cups away

Because every year you will be worried about getting relegated, or thinking you can make Europe. You will trundle along in the lower reaches of the premier League, until it's time for you to shuffle off and someone else gets a turn at earning the bucks. Under your method we are a club with no Basle, no steau, no cup finals. We are a nothing club clinging on by our fingernails to premier league football. In the words of Henry hill just another schumck.

My comment wasn't a dig at your grammar by the way. Just a way of saying I am just diametrically opposed to your view of football. Besides which I think we've had this debate before and we just have different priorities for our club. Don't really think there's much to discuss. Either you value the cups or you don't.
 
Those who moan about the team selection on Tuesday would be the first to be up in arms if Wilder had put his strongest team out and as a result had sustained injuries to key players thus depleting an already squad short on numbers. Cup runs are nice but not the main objective.
Remember we won the league cup but we’re a premier league team at the time.
Patience is a virtue, non stop moaning after three games is boring!!!
 
In 1977-78 Nottingham Forest played a full team every game, and won the league and League Cup (and got to FA Cup quarter finals)
The rubbish that has been planted in the head of so many following propaganda on behalf of the Big Business League is there for all to see.

Only one thing matters now, the cups which historically brought in our biggest crowds and most excitement ditched to hang on to the coat tails of the big boys.

Forest did it then as all other clubs did. We watched the 1968 European champions bring their top players to Ayresome for three years in a row shortly after, and we were promoted under Rioch playing our full side in every match in a 46 game season.

They're professional footballers with better support fitness wise than at any other time in history.

Stop this nonsense about cup games getting in the way of promotion, it's absolute tosh.
 
Our performance in early rounds with weakened sides is not just worrying because of the result it is also of concern because it seems that we cannot slot players into the first team formation/system and expect them to perform. Without checking whether it was last year or the one before that I remember Blackpool beating us with a team that had something like nine changes from the league side we had lost to a week or two before and they played in the same style and got a positive result against us when we put out a team with fewer changes. The team on Wednesday was like (and I don't know if this is true) we had taken the better players from the U23s and asked them to play in the positions of the players we wanted to rest/rotate rather than taking the lad who would play RWB for the U23s and slot him in at RWB. Indeed the formation seemed rather confused but I was "watching on the radio" and unlike the halcyon days of dear old Ali, Mr. Drury does not paint a picture of the proceedings with words. He still has a dreadful habit of seeming more excited when the opposition shoot/score than when we do.

Losing is never a good result, it doesn't mean that you will magically play better in the next more important game in fact it probably means the opposite. Winning is a habit and so is losing. Nor does it mean that your players will not get injured (though obviously they can't get injured in a game they don't play in) but they can still pick up injuries in training or just picking their kit bag out of the boot of the car. It would have been better for Sunday if we had won on Wednesday to say otherwise is trying to excuse the abject performance in front of a fair few paying punters who deserved better. And yes the chances us winning the cup this season are miniscule that's not the point. The point is trying to win every game that you play in whether it is the league, the cup or a game in the ressies.
I'd take promotion, relegation and 3 years back in the champo before I'd choose getting to the final of another cup, never mind SF or QF, whilst in the champo. A final or even semi-final is not really possible these days anyway, for a champo club like us. The quarters is about as good as it gets, once you're at QF/ SF stage the funs over, like Chelsea wasn't much fun.
Nobody is offering you that. This isn't a midnight meeting at the crossroads with the horn'd one. It's a game of football one team wins, one team loses. Nor is it an intellectual exercise or a spreadsheet it is a sporting contest in which there is a considerable element of luck but the most important thing is that it is entertaining. Wednesday night was not entertaining it was shambolic and cannot have advanced our team cohesion or function in any way.
Taking things as they come is fine, but doesn't work if you're not prepared and the best way to prepare is to focus on what is most important at the time. When you have a thin squad and are currently the level of a play off side then you're not in a position to waste points. If we get enough points...
Blah blah blah points. Losing on Wednesday makes losing on Sunday more not less likely.

Give me entertainment and (perhaps one day) glory.
 
Because every year you will be worried about getting relegated, or thinking you can make Europe. You will trundle along in the lower reaches of the premier League, until it's time for you to shuffle off and someone else gets a turn at earning the bucks. Under your method we are a club with no Basle, no steau, no cup finals. We are a nothing club clinging on by our fingernails to premier league football. In the words of Henry hill just another schumck.

My comment wasn't a dig at your grammar by the way. Just a way of saying I am just diametrically opposed to your view of football. Besides which I think we've had this debate before and we just have different priorities for our club. Don't really think there's much to discuss. Either you value the cups or you don't.
Why wouldn't there be a Basle, Steau, no cup finals? We only got our Europe runs by being in the Premier League, and doing well in the Championship to get into that. With that comes money, and with that comes a better squad so they can actually get to semi-finals and finals, and even win them.

It's even harder now as we're no longer rich compared to other clubs, so it's more of a reason to sack off the cups (for now).

Ok fair enough, no hard feelings, agree to disagree (y)
 
The game is faster especially at the higher levels, with more highly tuned players. I'd like to see how many miles are covered now compared with 1977 by a player in the top leagues. Look at physiques of players, few carry extra fat, which has increased the speed and movement of everything.

Its not untypical to have 6 or 7 players out injured now.

Cards are more common. We used to have player a year sent off, now its more like 5 a season.

In the past when squads were smaller, a classic betting technique was to bet against teams that had played in Europe in mid week against teams that hadn't, it was profitable.

I am not against trying to win cup games, but to me you need to be able to rotate players. If you have a smallish squad which we have at present best to concentrate on the league. When we did well in 2006 we were playing different Boro teams on a Thursday to a Sunday.
 
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In 1977-78 Nottingham Forest played a full team every game, and won the league and League Cup (and got to FA Cup quarter finals)
You've kind of proved my point by having to go back 44 years to a time where that could happen, it's nigh on impossible now, for a club of our wealth (which is nowhere near where it once was comparatively, to something like 20-25 years ago).

It sucks to have to concentrate on the league, but it makes sense to do it, for now.

When we eventually get back into the Premiership and have had a year of safety I'll be saying the complete opposite, as Cups would be the next target, and then Europe and so on. They shouldn't come at the cost of relegation though, as it sets us back years, especially if we don't bounce back.
 
Our performance in early rounds with weakened sides is not just worrying because of the result it is also of concern because it seems that we cannot slot players into the first team formation/system and expect them to perform. Without checking whether it was last year or the one before that I remember Blackpool beating us with a team that had something like nine changes from the league side we had lost to a week or two before and they played in the same style and got a positive result against us when we put out a team with fewer changes. The team on Wednesday was like (and I don't know if this is true) we had taken the better players from the U23s and asked them to play in the positions of the players we wanted to rest/rotate rather than taking the lad who would play RWB for the U23s and slot him in at RWB. Indeed the formation seemed rather confused but I was "watching on the radio" and unlike the halcyon days of dear old Ali, Mr. Drury does not paint a picture of the proceedings with words. He still has a dreadful habit of seeming more excited when the opposition shoot/score than when we do.

Losing is never a good result, it doesn't mean that you will magically play better in the next more important game in fact it probably means the opposite. Winning is a habit and so is losing. Nor does it mean that your players will not get injured (though obviously they can't get injured in a game they don't play in) but they can still pick up injuries in training or just picking their kit bag out of the boot of the car. It would have been better for Sunday if we had won on Wednesday to say otherwise is trying to excuse the abject performance in front of a fair few paying punters who deserved better. And yes the chances us winning the cup this season are miniscule that's not the point. The point is trying to win every game that you play in whether it is the league, the cup or a game in the ressies.

Nobody is offering you that. This isn't a midnight meeting at the crossroads with the horn'd one. It's a game of football one team wins, one team loses. Nor is it an intellectual exercise or a spreadsheet it is a sporting contest in which there is a considerable element of luck but the most important thing is that it is entertaining. Wednesday night was not entertaining it was shambolic and cannot have advanced our team cohesion or function in any way.

Blah blah blah points. Losing on Wednesday makes losing on Sunday more not less likely.

Give me entertainment and (perhaps one day) glory.
The reason we have a weakened side in the cup is because we're massively light on numbers, our two best forwards are not fit and the third best is injured. The 4th is in Turkey. There wasn't a 5th, until yesterday, but 2 or 3 of them are not good enough anyway. We have two centre mids, which we can't risk losing through injury or suspension and also had a centre back suspended. We can't even risk tiring players or getting slight knocks in key positions as when we have to make subs we drop a level considerably. The exact same thing happened against QPR, once we were forced into subs we lost all momentum.

Had we not played like clowns in the first half we could have been chasing a winner at the end, rather than a draw.

Other years with larger squads we could probably take more risk, but we don't have that luxury now. We will have a better squad by the time the FA Cup comes, so could do similar to what we did last year. I'd rather we didn't mind, unless we're walking the league, which we probably won't be.

We might not play better in the next game (or after any cup game), but we'll certainly be fitter/ have less knocks/ have less injuries/ less suspensions, it's impossible not to. It's a game of extremely fine margins, and there's no point our players being knackered in the final 30 minutes of the game when it matters most. I don't believe in habits, I believe in quality, fitness, strength in depth and player availability.

Injuries in training are far less likely, as the intensity and tackling is dialled down, same applies to friendlies to a lesser degree, which is why they're often awful to watch.

I get the point about paying punters 100%, we shouldn't be fielding a weakened side and charging £18. But I don't mean play better players, I mean just charge less, as in half. We would probably pick up the fan numbers too and might even spur us on a bit better.

You might not offer it, but I think we have a decent chance with our first team, and with what we bring in. If we get key injuries to key players though we're screwed. Equally if our performance after each cup game dips by 10% we're going to get less points.

End of the day I'm agreeing with what Wilder did, and seeing as he's the first decent manager we've had for a long while, then I reckon he knows a lot more than all of us do. He knew the risk, we had some good chances, and we lost, the first 11 have forgotten about that already, 99% of what they care about is Sunday which is against a team who got a lot closer than us to the Premier League.

I'm hoping for entertainment and wins on Sunday and Wednesday, that's worth 10x more beating a league 1 team.
 
Those who moan about the team selection on Tuesday would be the first to be up in arms if Wilder had put his strongest team out and as a result had sustained injuries to key players thus depleting an already squad short on numbers.

I can definitely say that's not something I've ever complained about. Tbh I don't recall reading any complaints on here over the years because players were used in cups. I do remember a few where injured players were brought back in the team too quick and aggravated their injuries. :unsure:
 
The only time we should be bothering with the cups is when we're in a safe position in the prem, where the games carry little risk, and we may actually be able to win them.

The trouble with this is we've had 2 seasons in the premier league in the last 15 years. Both relegation seasons.

You've mentioned our decade in the top flight 97-09. Before that the next stint that matches your criteria is the eight years 74-82. Before that it's another eight years 1946-1954.

So you'd have our club only even trying to achieve the "sporting glory" of a cup win for what? ~25 years out of the last 80? That's a lifetime. It's more than a teesside mans expected life time. What would be the point? You're writing off two thirds of seasons before they even start.

I do get what you're saying Andy and if it was all on football manager then sure promotion one year, a cup the next, europe the next, all on a neat and tidy little conveyor belt would indeed be perfect.

But that's not real life for a club like ours. The reality is we might never win a trophy again in any of our life times. If we do, it may be that we're a top division side or it may not be. It definitely won't be because we've somehow become the best team in the country - if we're waiting for that it'll never happen.

We don't have the luxury of picking and choosing when we feel like winning it, the club need to throw everything they can at the cups every season and hope that this happens to be our lucky year.

Btw it's funny that this basically mirrors our views on politics. You're a 'jam tomorrow' gadge on everything eh? All about delayed gratification with you.
 
There used to be a rule that a club must play the strongest available team.. Boro is in my blood and bones since I was put on this planet 67 years ago.. Ever since I went to my first match I have screamed, begged, prayed, and even sold my soul to the devil just to see a Boro team win a trophy. ANY flipping trophy. I don't care. We should be going for it and play to win every game. Progress to the next round of the cup excites me and my family and friends Further progress excites us more. People say that this trophy is unimportant. It is only unimportant if you don't reach the later rounds. FFS we all got excited when we reached the final of a competition that doesn't even exist any more.
 
There was a thread last week where the overwhelming sentiment seemed to dismiss the League Cup as an irrelevance now. One poster said if we lose some fans would get chewy though. He was certainly right there.
Me. I don’t care about losing this early on. 14 other championship clubs felt the same it seems.

That said I hope we can bounce back and put in a performance against Sheff U on Sunday as otherwise I’ll start to become “chewy”
 
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