Neil wake up

[the other bob wilson]

I like your last bit... cake and eating

Yes, we had a bad experience in the PL and I'm sure a lot of people share your view, myself included.
However we are not talking about promotion to the PL here are we, we are talking about risking our Championship status and the very real possibility of demotion to the 3rd tier.

You mention that teams in the past have managed a good cup run and staying up. Yes there have been I have no doubt about that, but I doubt many have been in the precarious, uncertain position of ourselves.

I still remember one of the best and worse feelings I've ever had watching the City... winning in the playoff semi against Stoke away, and the loss at home a couple of days later.
Looking back, I don't think it was the twist of fate that hurt the most, having done the hard bit away from home after playing champagne football and the way we gifted them their very late goal at NP, or that we missed out on a play off final, or even the fact that it was horrible Stoke we lost to.
It was the thought that we just missed out on playing the Big Boys, the teams who would come down from the premiership and the teams that were premier teams in waiting with fantastic grounds and traditions. Playing these guys week in week out with the real dream of playing in the big time.
It took quite a few years to get over that awful night, until rhe night of the QPR play off final in fact.

If saying that, having experienced the Premier League and not being too keen on a Stoke City like existence where, if we had established ourselves in that division, I would have in all likelihood, have welcomed a relegation struggle to break the monotony of wondering which position between eighth and twelfth we were going to finish in, I would probably prefer winning the FA or League Cups to more of the Premier League means I'm having my cake and eating it, then I plead guilty as charged.

You implied you have been supporting City a long time, so I wonder when your attitude towards Cup competitions changed, because I refuse to believe that it was the same as it is now in, say, the eighties. My guess is that it was sometime around when you heard a manager trying to justify filling his team with reserve players for an FA or League Cup tie for the twentieth time - I'm as guilty of being brainwashed as anyone else at times, but not here because there was no footballing reason to justify fielding weakened teams in cup competitions thirty years ago and there still isn't now.

The modern attitude towards Cup competitions is purely down to finance and, given the potential consequences of relegation from the Premier League when it comes to a club's balance sheet, I have a degree of sympathy for sides at that level who are in danger of going down if they decide that they do not want to risk injury to their best players in an FA Cup tie.

However, I just don't get why any side below the top flight would act in the same way and, coming back to City, I think the attitude they have shown towards Cup competitions (i.e. almost hoping to be beaten) has been counter productive - certainly since our relegation three years ago.

You say we are in a "precarious, uncertain position" and yet all I hear since the appointment of Neil Warnock is that we won't be relegated. As it it, I tend to agree with you - although we are slowly climbing the table and gradually putting more points between us and the bottom three, it wouldn't take a lot to see us dropping again and so, I say relegation is still a distinct possibility.

Nevertheless, I think a run to, say, the Fifth Round with, possibly, a win that would send confidence levels among the team and supporters soaring (it could have been Cardiff v Swansea in Round Four if results had gone a different way) along the way, would make relegation less likely than it is after Sunday's miserable match and occasion which, for me at least, sucked away so much of the feelgood factor that had been around after the Villa win.

One last thing, there was only a year between the Stoke Play Off defeat and us beating QPR at the Millennium Stadium.

[NYCBlue]

Yes we were - bottom three in November with plenty of calls for Dave Jones to be sacked.

But we were mid table by the time the 3rd round of the FA Cup came around and we ended up missing the playoffs by 6 points.

[the other bob wilson]

But we were mid table by the time the 3rd round of the FA Cup came around and we ended up missing the playoffs by 6 points.

So you're saying we would have reached the Play Offs without the cup run?

[Jimmy the Jock]

Remember those days when football clubs of all levels used to enter Cup competitions with the aim of winning them? Some of them knew that there was little or no chance of it happening, but would try their hardest to ensure that it did. The people who followed these teams would dream that one day they could watch their side win a trophy at Wembley and when, as it inevitably would in most cases, their team came up short of that aim, they could at least know that it wasn't for the want of trying that they had failed.

What, naive, innocent and gullible fools all concerned were back then! Fancy thinking that the distractions that are the FA and League Cups were worth trying to win, fancy thinking that they were competitions that deserved to be shown respect!

It's incredible how people swallow all of the bollox managers come out with when they field their reserve teams for cup games and I find it embarrassing that, at a club where we all have such recent experience of what getting to a national Cup Final (twice!) can do for a City or Town's sense of pride and the lift it gives club, team and supporters, that there are people on here talking about how they don't want a Cup run because it would damage our hopes of staying up.

I'm glad that I'm old enough to remember a time when far better City teams than this one used to play forty two league games a season, as many as they could in the FA and League Cups and played to win the Welsh Cup every season because that would earn them the privilege of playing in the European Cup Winners Cup for another season.

In 1970/71 we played fifty eight competitive matches, as we missed out on promotion to the old First Division by three points, won the Welsh Cup and got to the last eight of the Cup Winner's Cup before bowing out to Real Madrid, but that's as nothing compared to the 67/68 side which played fifty nine such games as they won the Welsh Cup again and this time were only beaten in the Semi Finals in Europe by a last minute goal - they then went on to spend late May, all of June and early July playing fourteen games in Australia and New Zealand and all of this with the smaller first team squad that was the norm back then compared to what we see now.

Since City were beaten by Liverpool in 2012, our record in and attitude towards Cup competitions has been disgraceful and where has all of this "we've got to concentrate on the television money - sorry, league!" attitude got us - with a worse team and a much lower league placing than we had ten years ago when we might have fielded the odd weakened side in the League Cup, but generally treated the FA Cup as a competition we were serious about.

I may be in a minority of one, but I'm still angry about Sunday.

No Bob , there are two of us . I feel cheated , by the club, by the manager and by the players.

Part of my season ticket deal is it includes cup games, I accept we cant win them all but to be throwing them doesn't sit well with me.
Every home game is 100 mile round trip for myself and my partner who is relatively new to CCFC, performances like Sunday at that ungodly hour, will drive people away from football.

A potential Cardiff Swansea game would have given both clubs a lift and something to look forward to other than a relegation battle.

[William Treseder]

No Bob , there are two of us . I feel cheated , by the club, by the manager and by the players.

Part of my season ticket deal is it includes cup games, I accept we cant win them all but to be throwing them doesn't sit well with me.
Every home game is 100 mile round trip for myself and my partner who is relatively new to CCFC, performances like Sunday at that ungodly hour, will drive people away from football.

A potential Cardiff Swansea game would have given both clubs a lift and something to look forward to more than a relegation battle.

Did it bother you both when we didn't try a leg against Macclesfield? The worst result in the clubs history?

[uncle bob]

How about giving 1 bonus league point for a win in the FA cup if you win the game? Like a bonus points system that's added for progression to the next round?
That would make teams take it more serious

[Dr Lecter]

How about giving 1 bonus league point for a win in the FA cup if you win the game? Like a bonus points system that's added for progression to the next round?
That would make teams take it more serious

Probably because you could have a situation where Man Utd get to the final of the cup and win the league, despite having a worse record than Chelsea who got knocked out in round three?

Something does need to be done but ultimately football has become all about money.

The only solution is to offer greater financial reward - either through a champions league place or bigger prize money.

[Jimmy the Jock]

Did it bother you both when we didn't try a leg against Macclesfield? The worst result in the clubs history?

It wasnt as bad as Sunday in my eyes. I felt we were sucker punched rather than didnt care.

[William Treseder]

It wasnt as bad as Sunday in my eyes. I felt we were sucker punched rather than didnt care.

Fair comment. I must admit I was a bit surprised at Warnocks attitude towards it all.
I might be in the minority here, but I'm a firm believer that you should play your strongest 11 available in all games. Surely it's all about keeping momentum going, or even getting momentum going. Plus I always thought the name of the game was to try to win trophys.
Never been a fan of rotating. Never used to happen in "Ye Goode olde days"

[Cleve van Leef]

Fair comment. I must admit I was a bit surprised at Warnocks attitude towards it all.
I might be in the minority here, but I'm a firm believer that you should play your strongest 11 available in all games. Surely it's all about keeping momentum going, or even getting momentum going. Plus I always thought the name of the game was to try to win trophys.
Never been a fan of rotating. Never used to happen in "Ye Goode olde days"

[NYCBlue]

So you're saying we would have reached the Play Offs without the cup run?

Of course not. But it may have been a factor. There's no way of knowing.

[blue matt]

^^^this^^^

Not sure how that could work apart from knocking one team off from their respective country's allocation and adding in their place the winner of their domestic cup.
I'm sure that would appeal to every team competing in the competition, possibly apart from say 6 of your top clubs in the country.

Didn't Warnock (or some other manager) say something like this defending his selection this weekend?

exactly

take the last prem league spot away, give it to the FA Cup winner, IF the FA Cup winner happens to have got a spot via the prem league, then the extra spot goes to the prem league, not the FA Cup

[MacAdder]

If saying that, having experienced the Premier League and not being too keen on a Stoke City like existence where, if we had established ourselves in that division, I would have in all likelihood, have welcomed a relegation struggle to break the monotony of wondering which position between eighth and twelfth we were going to finish in, I would probably prefer winning the FA or League Cups to more of the Premier League means I'm having my cake and eating it, then I plead guilty as charged.

You implied you have been supporting City a long time, so I wonder when your attitude towards Cup competitions changed, because I refuse to believe that it was the same as it is now in, say, the eighties. My guess is that it was sometime around when you heard a manager trying to justify filling his team with reserve players for an FA or League Cup tie for the twentieth time - I'm as guilty of being brainwashed as anyone else at times, but not here because there was no footballing reason to justify fielding weakened teams in cup competitions thirty years ago and there still isn't now.

The modern attitude towards Cup competitions is purely down to finance and, given the potential consequences of relegation from the Premier League when it comes to a club's balance sheet, I have a degree of sympathy for sides at that level who are in danger of going down if they decide that they do not want to risk injury to their best players in an FA Cup tie.

However, I just don't get why any side below the top flight would act in the same way and, coming back to City, I think the attitude they have shown towards Cup competitions (i.e. almost hoping to be beaten) has been counter productive - certainly since our relegation three years ago.

You say we are in a "precarious, uncertain position" and yet all I hear since the appointment of Neil Warnock is that we won't be relegated. As it it, I tend to agree with you - although we are slowly climbing the table and gradually putting more points between us and the bottom three, it wouldn't take a lot to see us dropping again and so, I say relegation is still a distinct possibility.

Nevertheless, I think a run to, say, the Fifth Round with, possibly, a win that would send confidence levels among the team and supporters soaring (it could have been Cardiff v Swansea in Round Four if results had gone a different way) along the way, would make relegation less likely than it is after Sunday's miserable match and occasion which, for me at least, sucked away so much of the feelgood factor that had been around after the Villa win.

One last thing, there was only a year between the Stoke Play Off defeat and us beating QPR at the Millennium Stadium.

I am not sure you read my quasi-lighthearted thread "All in all... a good day out" but if you did you would realise my tone and the reasons for it regarding Sundays game and as I said in it, I didn't really want to debate it in any detail, for one thing I don't have the time but also because I've learned it best not to take watching City too seriously for health reasons.
However, seeing as you have put the time in with feeling then it is only right I should reciprocate.

It is fair to say that my views don't differ hugely from yours except from the fact that I have accepted that the game has moved on from those eighties you allude to and accepted the reasons that money has changed attitudes to the things we have always held dear, i.e. the domestic cups.
It's a fact that mediocre players are earning a fortune and don't seem too bothered whether they even play, let alone win!

Your main beef (I think!) is that we fielded a weaker team but I'm not so sure NW did.
Most played the week before in a tough match against Villa with the exceptions of Huws and Halford who he needed to have a look at for the run in, plus Richards and Lambert who not long ago people were praising.
Truth is NW WARNOCK HAS A JOB TO DO. TO KEEP US UP (WITH SOME LITTLE ADDITIONAL TASK OF GETTING MONEY FOR THE DROSS AND STRENGTHENING THE SQUAD WITH THAT CASH).
I SUSPECT HE DIDN'T REALISE HOW TOUGH A JOB HE WAS TAKING ON, whether it be the lack of quality or for some reason them not willing to pull in the same direction... he still has work to do!
Our exit from the cup is not solely down to NW playing a bunch of seconds.
It's much more complicated than that.

Also, my apologies for yet another faux pas :homer:. Of course it was a year later (for 'years' read 'months' or '46 games') but my point for that time is clear.
The Championship was/is Big time, League 1 was/is nowhere.
Following the Stoke S/F playoff game, the reality is we would still be in the wilderness (where mighty Sheffield United have been for some time!).

I also take your point about a winning team, feelgood factor and confidence but a run in the cup can also be an unwelcome distraction as Wigan, Portsmouth among others, will testify.

P.S. Sorry about the Caps lock!

[MacAdder]

Fair comment. I must admit I was a bit surprised at Warnocks attitude towards it all.
I might be in the minority here, but I'm a firm believer that you should play your strongest 11 available in all games. Surely it's all about keeping momentum going, or even getting momentum going. Plus I always thought the name of the game was to try to win trophys.
Never been a fan of rotating. Never used to happen in "Ye Goode olde days"

You mean these days...
https://youtu.be/y4CXY6TVBMc

[the other bob wilson]

I am not sure you read my quasi-lighthearted thread "All in all... a good day out" but if you did you would realise my tone and the reasons for it regarding Sundays game and as I said in it, I didn't really want to debate it in any detail, for one thing I don't have the time but also because I've learned it best not to take watching City too seriously for health reasons.
However, seeing as you have put the time in with feeling then it is only right I should reciprocate.

It is fair to say that my views don't differ hugely from yours except from the fact that I have accepted that the game has moved on from those eighties you allude to and accepted the reasons that money has changed attitudes to the things we have always held dear, i.e. the domestic cups.
It's a fact that mediocre players are earning a fortune and don't seem too bothered whether they even play, let alone win!

Your main beef (I think!) is that we fielded a weaker team but I'm not so sure NW did.
Most played the week before in a tough match against Villa with the exceptions of Huws and Halford who he needed to have a look at for the run in, plus Richards and Lambert who not long ago people were praising.
Truth is NW WARNOCK HAS A JOB TO DO. TO KEEP US UP (WITH SOME LITTLE ADDITIONAL TASK OF GETTING MONEY FOR THE DROSS AND STRENGTHENING THE SQUAD WITH THAT CASH).
I SUSPECT HE DIDN'T REALISE HOW TOUGH A JOB HE WAS TAKING ON, whether it be the lack of quality or for some reason them not willing to pull in the same direction... he still has work to do!
Our exit from the cup is not solely down to NW playing a bunch of seconds.
It's much more complicated than that.

Also, my apologies for yet another faux pas :homer:. Of course it was a year later (for 'years' read 'months' or '46 games') but my point for that time is clear.
The Championship was/is Big time, League 1 was/is nowhere.
Following the Stoke S/F playoff game, the reality is we would still be in the wilderness (where mighty Sheffield United have been for some time!).

I also take your point about a winning team, feelgood factor and confidence but a run in the cup can also be an unwelcome distraction as Wigan, Portsmouth among others, will testify.

P.S. Sorry about the Caps lock!

I was wondering what that was all about .

Regarding the bit I've highlighted - apologies to him if I've got this wrong, but I'm fairly sure I heard Warnock say that the missing players would have been available if we had been playing the wurzels on Sunday. Also, I'd say that, although our weakened team formed part of the reason for it, my "main beef" was more to do with City's attitude to cup competitions in the five years following our League Cup Final appearance and the way so many of our fans are happy to accept what I wouldn't say is a let's hope we lose attitude on their behalf, but it's not far short of one.

Here's a scenario for you, say it had been Cardiff v Swansea on Sunday and the BBC had insisted on a 10.30 am kick off for television coverage, what do you reckon the crowd would have been? Also, say we had fielded the sort of side we did against Fulham, while the jacks picked their strongest team and ended up winning 3-0, what do you think the reaction would have been like on here, on other social media sites and in the local media?

[MacAdder]

I was wondering what that was all about .

Regarding the bit I've highlighted - apologies to him if I've got this wrong, but I'm fairly sure I heard Warnock say that the missing players would have been available if we had been playing the wurzels on Sunday. Also, I'd say that, although our weakened team formed part of the reason for it, my "main beef" was more to do with City's attitude to cup competitions in the five years following our League Cup Final appearance and the way so many of our fans are happy to accept what I wouldn't say is a let's hope we lose attitude on their behalf, but it's not far short of one.

Here's a scenario for you, say it had been Cardiff v Swansea on Sunday and the BBC had insisted on a 10.30 am kick off for television coverage, what do you reckon the crowd would have been? Also, say we had fielded the sort of side we did against Fulham, while the jacks picked their strongest team and ended up winning 3-0, what do you think the reaction would have been like on here, on other social media sites and in the local media?

I reckon Warnock said that because he felt a bit of pressure and was embarrassed by the performance.

Fans-wise, can't disagree with you.
I think we all know that had we been playing the jacks at at a silly time, it would more than likely have been a sell out.

As I intimated, I don't think that the strongest side he would field would be much stronger in quality than that of Sunday but I'm sure that the players would have battled more.

I also think that the score might well have been 3 nil to the Jacks.