Ashberto
01-03-2014, 02:42 PM
it would actually increase our chances of winning the league if we were to be spared further participation in that minor tournament.
I don't buy the application of "winning is a habit" to cup runs as a benefactor of league results. Not for us, anyway. We get stretched, tired and injured. Our decent progress in the Extremely **** Cup over the years has only got in the way of more important things, especially when losing the final in Feb is a prelude to crashing out of everything in sight on consecutive weeks. Awful as it was to lose to that jeering, howling mob of National Front on that dismal Extremely **** Cup evening the other month, I'm not sad to see the back of it. Not this year.
People say "but why does it have to be a choice between the FA Cup OR targeted League position, why not the FA Cup AND the League? Because of the cost in muscle and sinew, of which we have finite resources.
So while I want us to win, I've been telling myself this to prepare for the possibilty of defeat.
I don't buy the application of "winning is a habit" to cup runs as a benefactor of league results. Not for us, anyway. We get stretched, tired and injured. Our decent progress in the Extremely **** Cup over the years has only got in the way of more important things, especially when losing the final in Feb is a prelude to crashing out of everything in sight on consecutive weeks. Awful as it was to lose to that jeering, howling mob of National Front on that dismal Extremely **** Cup evening the other month, I'm not sad to see the back of it. Not this year.
People say "but why does it have to be a choice between the FA Cup OR targeted League position, why not the FA Cup AND the League? Because of the cost in muscle and sinew, of which we have finite resources.
So while I want us to win, I've been telling myself this to prepare for the possibilty of defeat.