Boro managers DO NOT chuck the cups away

Meanwhile in Sheffield

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Morning Jedi.

With the crude "logic" of some - Paul Heckingbottom must have deliberately "thrown away" the game last night.
In the league they`ve lost to Watford and beaten Millwall. Clearly hes not bothered about promotion!

Just looking at the EFL Table.
Alongside any from Coventry, Huddersfield, Bristol City, Swansea, Rotherham and Norwich - we might get relegated!!!!!!!
Nothing`s going to change.
We might as well give up.:(

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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.
Yeah, so I suppose you could count trying in the cups where we had zero sniff of promotion or relegation in that too, so all of Strachan's time and the time Mobray had to recover from that. Not so much Woodgate, as we looked in trouble etc. Maybe even another couple of seasons. We've had 3 QF's in 28 attempts, it's not a good return.

The point I suppose is how you rank the quality of our 1st team squad (or what it supposedly will be) compared to the last 14 years we've played in the champo. I rank the 1st 11 quite high already, and it will be even higher once the window is done I'm sure, just like how Wilder believes. Also factoring in for the tiny amount of depth for key positions, which if we had a problem with, could hurt our chances from the off.

All I'm really saying is I rate our chances quite high this year (compared to other years), so I don't believe it's a year to be risking the cups, which are absolutely certain not to pay out in any finals or wins etc. I'm not saying this would apply to all seasons, as it shouldn't when there's less chance of promotion or more chance of relegation.

I suppose the key thing is do people believe on here that we can be one of the best three teams in the league this year, if we get our targets?

We might not win another trophy, but the best chance is with a better team and squad, and to do that we absolutely must get promoted. Don't try and claim some false equivalence that our odds are the same each year, they're not, they're proportional to our ability. We don't have to be the best team in the country, probability dictates we do need to be in the Premiership though, and not expecting a relegation fight (if we plan on staying in the Prem too).

I don't see the point in prioritising one or two days against big clubs, and likely losing, over playing them each week, with a better chance of winning, and we get to watch much better players.

I wouldn't risk everything on a 1 in 200 cup, when you have another option of 1 in 3 promotion (rough current bookies odds of FA Cup win V Championship Promotion)

I just believe in having a plan, and an eye on the bigger picture long term it will be better. Then in those later years, you get more achievable short-term goals. Like always, if you try and grab everything at the same time, you end up with nothing but false hope.
 
Yeah, so I suppose you could count trying in the cups where we had zero sniff of promotion or relegation in that too, so all of Strachan's time

We were the bookies faves and big spenders in Strachan's season! It definitely wouldn't have been one of the ones matching your criteria contemporaneously.

The point I suppose is how you rank the quality of our 1st team squad (or what it supposedly will be) compared to the last 14 years we've played in the champo. I rank the 1st 11 quite high already, and it will be even higher once the window is done I'm sure, just like how Wilder believes.

I don't really agree. Feel like there's players in every position from previous boro teams I'd have straight in the side now. Randolph, Ayala, Clayton, Traore, Bamford. They'd all be first choice in this squad. Probably lot of others too but those are the most obvious to me.

But in any case that's really not my point. There's no position in the league that would make me not want the club management to try everything they can to progress in the cups.
 
We were the bookies faves and big spenders in Strachan's season! It definitely wouldn't have been one of the ones matching your criteria contemporaneously.



I don't really agree. Feel like there's players in every position from previous boro teams I'd have straight in the side now. Randolph, Ayala, Clayton, Traore, Bamford. They'd all be first choice in this squad. Probably lot of others too but those are the most obvious to me.

But in any case that's really not my point. There's no position in the league that would make me not want the club management to try everything they can to progress in the cups.
Grant would walk into it as well
 
I just believe in having a plan, and an eye on the bigger picture long term it will be better. Then in those later years, you get more achievable short-term goals. Like always, if you try and grab everything at the same time, you end up with nothing but false hope.

Fair enough. To me it feels like you could delay and wait and hold off and plan and keep biding your time until there's that perfect season where we can go for the cups... and then we might get drawn away to Liverpool or someone and be out anyway. And somehow 20 years have gone by. And in hindsight maybe it would have just been better to try and beat Barnsley at home when we had the chance. 🤣🤷‍♂️ If we ever do have another season where we win a cup, I'll really not care if it wasn't timed perfectly.
 
We were the bookies faves and big spenders in Strachan's season! It definitely wouldn't have been one of the ones matching your criteria contemporaneously.

I don't really agree. Feel like there's players in every position from previous boro teams I'd have straight in the side now. Randolph, Ayala, Clayton, Traore, Bamford. They'd all be first choice in this squad. Probably lot of others too but those are the most obvious to me.

But in any case that's really not my point. There's no position in the league that would make me not want the club management to try everything they can to progress in the cups.
I wasn't then, like Strachan, some people clearly overvalued the ability of players from the SPL, I don't.

We could have done well with Monk's players (with a different manager) and I had high expectations under AK, but the rest Play-Offs at best, but even that was a stretch.

You've picked 5 players from the last ~8 years, and one of those was a season immediately after being in the Prem? Of course, some of them would get in the current starting 11, you could nearly get a starting 11 better than this one, one of those teams came second in a year where we did nothing special in the cups, and scraped through to second on goal difference (by two). Had we had long cup runs we could have been in the playoffs, and not gone up. The season in the prem was **** mind. I think Howson last year was better than Clayton overall, but not much in it. Clayton better at winning the ball, but not as good when he got it.

But it's largely about the starting 11 you have in any one given year. This one is very good, we have the best balance/ creativity we've had in that time, the defence is up there, the keeper may end up above Randolph, we've got quite a lot of goals in midfield and we've got two strikers who may come good, but clearly are after someone better. I think Giles could have more assists this year than almost any player we've had, and Jones will be up there too.

My attitude to the cups varies with expetation of where we would place, 2/3 years I'd probably see go for it, but don't think this year is one of those years, based on the assumption we're going to add a couple more very good players. If we don't get the players then we can try for the FA Cup, depends how the squad looks around then.
 
Yeah. Barry Robson. George Friend. Gibson. Dimi. There's loads really. Kike tbh. Suppose Tav belongs on this list now sadly.
Try picking from the teams which didn't get promoted, or be in with a good shout? Most of those are from a team where we came second and did little in the cups.

I loved Georgous Geroge, but I think Giles will be better, at least as a wing back, probably not as a left back. Don't think Gibson in the champo was any better than Fry, thought Ayala helped him a lot, and Lenihan may be better than both Fry and Gibson but way too early to tell on that, doubt he'll be better than Ayala, he was unreal in the year we went up.

Tav a few years back wasn't good enough, but the Tav we could have had this year (esp under Wilder) could have been unreal.
 
Fair enough. To me it feels like you could delay and wait and hold off and plan and keep biding your time until there's that perfect season where we can go for the cups... and then we might get drawn away to Liverpool or someone and be out anyway. And somehow 20 years have gone by. And in hindsight maybe it would have just been better to try and beat Barnsley at home when we had the chance. 🤣🤷‍♂️ If we ever do have another season where we win a cup, I'll really not care if it wasn't timed perfectly.
Wait until we're up next year, a nice squad assembled, and clear of the relegation zone before the FA Cup kicks off :LOL:

Nah, in all honesty I see cups being back on the agenda in the next couple of years, either up and safe(ish) with Wilder, or the plan fails and we're back around mid-table/play-off outskirts in the champo.
 
I can't believe it is even a question. We should be trying to win every match. Surely last season showed how important the cups are. Knockout football is special and it is huge for the fans. We sacrifice, particularly the league cup, every season. Where has it got us? There's no way a squad can't cope with an extra 5 or 6 matches in a season. They should be ashamed to even sell tickets for the league cup.

We're never going to win the PL so our only chance of any glory is a cup win and/or wins against the big teams. Even if we are in the PL wins against the top teams is the best we can hope for so why not do it in the cups? We can have that glory now, we don't need to wait.

They will scrap the league cup soon because nobody takes it seriously and then our only piece of silverware can be disregarded as "not a major trophy" and we'll be back to square one with no silverware in our history. That will be down to the attitude of fans that it is preferable (not even just acceptable!) that we get knocked out as soon as possible.
 
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