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


Pros: It would be great to play European football, and it would certainly be a great advert for prospective signings. Cons: I do think it would stretch us, and I'd be interested in what the data says about clubs competing in the Europa League re: domestic performance.
 
palm 1 said:
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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Serious question: if qualifying for Europe ruins next season, what do actually want us to achieve?

Are you saying you don't want Europe because it would hamper our bid to... qualify for Europe?

If someone offered me knockout rounds of the Europa/Conference League next season, I'd happily accept a poorer Premier League campaign.
 
Not sure how it will pan out. Just got to go for it. We want to hang on to players we are going to need it some point in the next year or 2. It’s very achievable this season though.
 
indymackem said:
Serious question: if qualifying for Europe ruins next season, what do actually want us to achieve?

Are you saying you don't want Europe because it would hamper our bid to... qualify for Europe?

If someone offered me knockout rounds of the Europa/Conference League next season, I'd happily accept a poorer Premier League campaign.
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Obviously I want us to do as well and accept we may have to play in these competitions. I just can’t get excited about them nor do I believe they are good for those who qualify.
If they changed the format and it became the competition it once was I’d be buzzing for it but now it’s just too many games against teams I’ve no interest in .

I’d rather we tried to win one of our cups and did well in the league than have a season in the Conference league.
 
We have to strive to finish as high up the table as we possibly can and we should be wanting to qualify for Europe as a club and fans. I'm sure that the players do...

But it's a fair argument to say that the current squad would be stretched and may struggle to cope with the extra fixtures.

It would just mean that we would have to have another big transfer window to bring in a few extra quality players.
 
indymackem said:
Serious question: if qualifying for Europe ruins next season, what do actually want us to achieve?

Are you saying you don't want Europe because it would hamper our bid to... qualify for Europe?

If someone offered me knockout rounds of the Europa/Conference League next season, I'd happily accept a poorer Premier League campaign.
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Same as the people that thought relegation would help us get rid of the deadwood and rebuild.

That worked out well.🤷‍♂️
 
European competitions were fine in the old format, home and away straight knockout competition.
Its diluted now, and I usually only watch it from the semis.
That might change however.....
 
palm 1 said:
Obviously I want us to do as well and accept we may have to play in these competitions. I just can’t get excited about them nor do I believe they are good for those who qualify.
If they changed the format and it became the competition it once was I’d be buzzing for it but now it’s just too many games against teams I’ve no interest in .

I’d rather we tried to win one of our cups and did well in the league than have a season in the Conference league.
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Fair enough, each to their own. I love the domestic cups, and would obviously winning an FA Cup is up there with the best things this club could do in my lifetime.

That said, it comes around every year. And in any given year 'Man City (A)' comes out of the hat and no matter how good you are, you're probably going home.

Europe is obviously a very rare opportunity. I think if we have the chance, we should put everything into taking it. (The players will want it given that nearly all of our signings have played in Europe at some level.)
 
andy78 said:
Maybe it would be too soon but we might miss out, survive the second season but then never trouble the European places again. We're not guaranteed to keep improving and got to take opportunities when they are presented to you.
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Depending on the players and squad size we have it might end up being an opportunity to try something different in Europe.
 
hypersonic said:
Depending on the players and squad size we have it might end up being an opportunity to try something different in Europe.
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Rules are quite different to premier league. There’s an A list of players in the senior squad of up to 25 but 8 must be homegrown and 4 must be from your own academy.
There’s B list is U21’s. Our recruitment would have to reflect this to some extent.
 
DonaldDownTheWing said:
Conference league wouldn’t ruin our season. Some of the teams in that competition are bottom half championship standard at best. We’d have to strengthen the squad with both quality and numbers, but we’d be able to rest & rotate too.

Europe isn’t the reason the mags are shite this year. Selling one of the best strikers in the world and replacing him with Woltemade & Wissa, whilst not strengthening the midfield, is why they’re shite.

Oh and both their keepers are absolutely woeful.
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Agree with the Conference league, any premier league team can get away with naming a reserve 11 in that competition and still reach the knockouts. If we qualify for that we can beef up the squad a bit and key players like Xhaka, Brobbey etc can be left to be fresh for the Premier league.
 
Scorer said:
Rules are quite different to premier league. There’s an A list of players in the senior squad of up to 25 but 8 must be homegrown and 4 must be from your own academy.
There’s B list is U21’s. Our recruitment would have to reflect this to some extent.
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Yeah I've seen the rules; they don't seem massively different to the PL.

8 home-grown (in our academy) players and 4 association-grown, else your squad is reduced, but u21s are free as long as we've had them for two seasons.

From my reading of the rules, any new players brought in, regardless of whether they could be eligible as home-grown, association-grown or u21; wouldn't count as eligible for any of those statues, due to not being at the club long enough.
 
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I would love us to be involved in a European competition BUT, the season after next. No matter how you look at it next season needs to be a consolidation season without any distractions. Players need to be recruited to make sure that we are able to kick on and be able to stay competitive in the PL. A season of playing in Europe will scupper that and would be a major distraction.. No, I know what I want but I'm prepared to wait another year after waiting 53 years on from the Sporting Lisbon game. It will come
 
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