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To the "we're not ready for Europe" crowd


NZMackem92 said:
if we get conference league, the standard of the teams is not the best. Good squad rotation will be enough to suffice.

We’ve played two games a week in league one and the championship for years, granted travel adds a bit of strain.

We will add to the squad in the summer too. I’m confident we have a plan to deal with the extra work load.
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I’m fully invested in this now like. Surely players like Ta Bi, Mayenda, Ellborg & Geragusian come out of playing matches like this better players & either a) service the first team or b) enhance their trading value.

Rather than look at the negatives, let’s embrace the positives we could get from this.
 
If not now, when?

We would have a chance of ‘one more season’ for some of our existing players and will attract a few more to the project.

Imagine another one or two with Xhaka-like backgrounds and a couple of prospects.

Then Villa hump us 😃
 
It’s just exciting that with six games to go in our first season back in the top flight we’re fighting for something that isn’t survival!

It’s been a phenomenal season with so many highlights and maybe just maybe another one yet to come.

Win today and we go into games against Forest and Wolves only three points outside the champions league places!

Utter madness
 
We are nowhere near ready and if we do we either choose to try and compete and have another huge transfer window or as above play 2nd team and toddle along.

Threads like this and "He will be Gone by next season" sum up message boards and "fans" at the minute.

We were poor before the mags game lost 3 in a row at home, woeful, didn't put a glove on Port Vale (people still blaming the pitch WTF) etc.
Look at RLB pre mags press conference it was a list of excuses and getting them in early. We won played better than we had and given how much the game means gives the fans a massive lift and everything before is forgotten. We win a very poor game against a poor spuds and it gets amplified.
Its a very strange season in the prem, Brighton were turgid won 5 in a row and challenging for Champions League, Brentford same.
I want us to finish as high as possible, but there is no way come next season we are going to have the "fine margins" go our way as much again. We need to invest substantially just to cement our premiership place. Look how much Spuds have spent, Notts Forest, West Ham over the past few seasons. Manu finished 15th last season after spending fortunes. Anybody who thinks we are OK as stands is just deluding themselves.

There is simply no balance people much more interested in scoring points over eachother.
 
El Gen said:
'smaller teams' don't get promoted 24 points behind the top 2 in the Championship and then end up in a fight for european qualification 10 months later.
But here we are, with it all in our hands - and done financially sustainably.

Absolutely mental, but this is a very different Sunderland AFC to one any of us have known.
This is a magic carpet ride - but they put LSD in the beer
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Yep. Be good to get back to being the Sunderland of 1879-1958 vintage when we were afraid of no-one!
 
Frijj said:
I think it is inevitable that it would come at the cost of poorer domestic results, as we'd be fighting on an extra front.

'Smaller' teams who sneak into Europe tend to fare poorer the following season. Part of that might be because they exceeded expectations the previous season and are simply regressing to the mean, but it's common sense to see that when Burnley got into Europe, they finished with 14 fewer points the following season.

There are exceptions, it doesn't always happen, but if we didn't invest in the squad to manage those extra games, we could struggle.
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Is this the same acct as a few years back? Cos that poster was good, witty, sharp and cut the usual SMB bollocks stuff without stating the obvious. What happened?
ac999 said:
We are nowhere near ready and if we do we either choose to try and compete and have another huge transfer window or as above play 2nd team and toddle along.

Threads like this and "He will be Gone by next season" sum up message boards and "fans" at the minute.

We were poor before the mags game lost 3 in a row at home, woeful, didn't put a glove on Port Vale (people still blaming the pitch WTF) etc.
Look at RLB pre mags press conference it was a list of excuses and getting them in early. We won played better than we had and given how much the game means gives the fans a massive lift and everything before is forgotten. We win a very poor game against a poor spuds and it gets amplified.
Its a very strange season in the prem, Brighton were turgid won 5 in a row and challenging for Champions League, Brentford same.
I want us to finish as high as possible, but there is no way come next season we are going to have the "fine margins" go our way as much again. We need to invest substantially just to cement our premiership place. Look how much Spuds have spent, Notts Forest, West Ham over the past few seasons. Manu finished 15th last season after spending fortunes. Anybody who thinks we are OK as stands is just deluding themselves.

There is simply no balance people much more interested in scoring points over eachother.
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We weren’t ready for the PL last summer either.
Geras said:
Watch us get there and draw Total Network Solutions 😆
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I’m still going.
Muddied Oaf said:
Aye Berkshire is lovely this time of year!
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There’s those who know…..
NZMackem92 said:
if we get conference league, the standard of the teams is not the best. Good squad rotation will be enough to suffice.

We’ve played two games a week in league one and the championship for years, granted travel adds a bit of strain.

We will add to the squad in the summer too. I’m confident we have a plan to deal with the extra work load.
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Aye. Let’s work our way up.
Lower mid PL and Conf Lge trophy one year. Lower Mid and Europa Lge trophy the next. Lower mid and CL trophy the one after. Then start the top half of PL and hauling in the domestic KO trophies to put us above the mags on all fronts. Once that’s done we can think about getting carried away.
 
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I wonder how many of those desperate for Europe would actually go to these teams that no one has heard of and couldn’t place on a map . It’s all very well playing in the Champions League and visiting , Milan , Barcelona and Rome but I’ve no interest in swapping a successful League campaign and possible domestic cup journey for nights in
Shelbourne , Zirinski or Kups Kiopio.
Plus playing on a Sunday every week is shit as well .
I get people being excited about new experiences but is it really worth it ??
 
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I've been back and forth between "we're not ready" and "f***ing go for it" and I think I've landed on "If not now, when?"

As others have said nothing is certain, the idea we can pick and choose and say "Ah we're not ready we'll go for it next season" just isn't the way it works.

European football, even the lower tier competitons is something the majority of English football clubs will never experience.
 
palm 1 said:
I wonder how many of those desperate for Europe would actually go to these teams that no one has heard of and couldn’t place on a map . It’s all very well playing in the Champions League and visiting , Milan , Barcelona and Rome but I’ve no interest in swapping a successful League campaign and possible domestic cup journey for nights in
Shelbourne , Zirinski or Kups Kiopio.
Plus playing on a Sunday every week is shit as well .
I get people being excited about new experiences but is it really worth it ??
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A European campaign would be the best thing to happen to the club in over 50 years. Would be worth every second.
 
DonaldDownTheWing said:
A European campaign would be the best thing to happen to the club in over 50 years. Would be worth every second.
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Even if it completely fucks our season ?

If we got Champions League maybe I’d get excited .

Look at the Mags , one good season , qualify for Europe then poor following season .
They’ve just had a great season in Europe but now it’s over , the manager is on the verge of being sacked .

If we do get there , the threads complaining about the drop in league performance, the shit kick off times and the injury list will be as many as the ones buzzing about Aberdeen on a Thursday night .
 
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palm 1 said:
I wonder how many of those desperate for Europe would actually go to these teams that no one has heard of and couldn’t place on a map . It’s all very well playing in the Champions League and visiting , Milan , Barcelona and Rome but I’ve no interest in swapping a successful League campaign and possible domestic cup journey for nights in
Shelbourne , Zirinski or Kups Kiopio.
Plus playing on a Sunday every week is shit as well .
I get people being excited about new experiences but is it really worth it ??
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You'd just play the likes of the Jones triplets in those games. It's a league format so you can afford to lose a few games if it doesn't come off. You could use the early rounds as basically like a reserve team competition with odd first teamer and those coming back from injury playing. You might have to go nearer full strength towards the back end of the group stage if we need to pick up some points. It's an adventure, embrace it.
 
it would undoubtedly stretch our resources and we’d need to really strengthen the squad depth but KLD and RLB will both be fully aware of that and have so far dealt admirably with every challenge. If it’s a possibility you have to go for it.
 
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