........keep hearing it being mentioned that our win yesterday was against an under strength Chelsea.
What i don't hear is that it was an under strength WBA side that got the victory.
Whilst Chelsea didn't start with key players like Oscar and Mata....they were available for selection and even had a good half an hour of play. WBA however not only had star man and number 1 GK Ben Foster unavailable but also Gareth McAuley who has started every game this calander year....A centre back who has made the position his own. Also our first choice right back was missing in Steven Reid and goalscorer Romelu Lukaku was unable to play against his parent club.
Yesterdays win was no fluke.
We are where we are on merit and the fact is...we have a very good bleeding squad at the moment! Can we maintain a Champions League place. Doubt it, but we'll enjoy it while we are there and i think a fight for 7th and a Europa place is very much on the cards.
Impressive...
posted on 19/11/12
This is The Baggie Man
Quite agree with what you have said JH and yes, we were also without key players albeit I thought Myhill, Tamas and Billy J were all excellent on Saturday.
Not sure about this Europa thing though. I remember the great season Sjoke City had - cup final and a top 10 finish and a place in the Europa Cup. Basically, they went to pieces the next season - Europe on a Tuesday night, Prem at the weekend and they struggled as I fear we would/could struggle even though we have a bigger and better squad.
People say its money but the gates are a lot smaller than for a normal Premiership game and the travel costs a lot higher. Plus, at the end of the day, the big boys get put into the Europa if the fail in the higher tier so really, what's the point.
To illustrate, without Googling it, who won the Europa last season?
This was The Baggie Man
posted on 19/11/12
you deserved it. we deserved to lose. no excuses from me about our team, we put a team out there that we thought could beat your team and they couldnt. better team won.
posted on 19/11/12
I'd love Europe.
Give me a Thursday night trip to some dingey Serbian village any day of the week.
I think a European trip would be excellent for the club and disagree it would come to soon! We don't just have a good team, we have a good squad! We beat the European champions yesterday without Ben Foster, Gareth McAuley, Steven Reid, Jerome Thomas, Romelu Lukaku, Marc Antoine Fortunè whilst the likes of Chris Brunt, Graham Dorrans and Markus Rosenberg came on for a few minutes to see out that game. Not too mention if we were to qualify for Europe that in itself would give us the pulling power to attract a higher end of player and we would no doubt add to the squad anyway!
Will we get Europe? I feel we may finish just short but if you offered it me now i'd snap your hand off
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Nice one Mr C
Good Luck at Juve
posted on 19/11/12
Cheers mate. We will need plenty of luck
posted on 19/11/12
To illustrate, without Googling it, who won the Europa last season?
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without google, Atletico Madrid.
Falcao scored the winner in a 1-0 against Bilbao?
dunno whether that was supposed to be rhetorical tbh haha
posted on 19/11/12
oh, it was 3-0