This Weekend's Fixtures & Midweek Fixtures (20/21/22/24/25 May).

[Niall_Quinn]

Luton in the PL.

I mean there’s no way they’re surviving next year but what a story.

That's not the main issue. Parking a car in Luton for the away match is the real problem. I mean, how are you going to get home?

[Niall_Quinn]

Coventry vs Luton


Hmmm don’t know who I want to win this


Coventry did beat Spurs 3-2 at Wembley in 1987, and then we lost 3-2 to Luton in the league cup final a year later so I would swing towards Coventry

But I remember Coventry and Mick Quinn getting a hat trick against us at Highbury.

Nah actually don’t care, have no beef with either team. My uncle used to support Coventry (I say used to as he’s dead, bit of a prick as well)

I’ll go with the sky blues (just)

Same here, no idea who I want to win. Also had no idea it was on. All I can say is Coventry used to have that far-out kit with the two black stripes down the front.

[HCZ_Reborn]

That's not the main issue. Parking a car in Luton for the away match is the real problem. I mean, how are you going to get home?

Train?

[Letters]

Luton in the PL.

I mean there’s no way they’re surviving next year but what a story.

You know that when they beat us in the 1988 League Cup final they were a first division team who only finished a few places below us? There’s this perception amongst kids ( ) that they’re minnows, historically that isn’t quite true. Never giants of the game, but I remember them in the first division.

[HCZ_Reborn]

You know that when they beat us in the 1988 League Cup final they were a first division team who only finished a few places below us? There’s this perception amongst kids ( ) that they’re minnows, historically that isn’t quite true. Never giants of the game, but I remember them in the first division.

Financial doping aside, the league hasn’t changed that much from the 70s and 80s. You had one team that tended to be dominant (back then it was Liverpool). You had contender teams like Forest, Everton etc and you also had teams that were punching above their weight. Watford had a bit of a run in the 1980s, Swansea did as well…challenged for the title in season after Villa won it

[Letters]

Financial doping aside, the league hasn’t changed that much from the 70s and 80s. You had one team that tended to be dominant (back then it was Liverpool). You had contender teams like Forest, Everton etc and you also had teams that were punching above their weight. Watford had a bit of a run in the 1980s, Swansea did as well…challenged for the title in season after Villa won it

I’d say the big changes are the level of money and the rise of the CL which has created a group of clubs at the top of leagues like the PL. And qualification for the CL generates the money which makes it self sustaining with good investment. It’s possible to buy your way in like Chelsea then City did, but the gap between the haves and have nots is far bigger these days. Leicester are real outliers, what they did shouldn’t be possible these days, but they did it in a season where the other usual suspects were rebuilding and we were being characteristically hopeless.
If you look at the 60s and 70s, you had lots of different champions and a side winning the league one year would often finish mid table the following season. There’s far less mobility these days and the strata of the game are far more clearly defined.

[HCZ_Reborn]

What I’m saying is that there is a belief from people in rose tinted spectacles that any team could potentially win the old first division title, when it was invariably dominated by the side that spent the most. And let’s not forget that Forest seen as the plucky underdog of its day, was the first club to make the £1 million pound signing, and even when Clough won with Derby it was off the back of spending money to bring players in.

There’s no doubt that what’s happened now is a continuation of what happened before but on steroids, to the point where it’s become a closed shop and it’s far more stratified you’re right. But money always talked in football, even when you could claim that your whole team came from your academy it was a result of spending money to bring in the best prospects country wide (take the Busby Babes…Bobby Charlton would have ended up playing for Newcastle, Duncan Edwards for Wolves or Aston Villa if they weren’t lured with money by United scouts)

It’s just a case that now it’s become ridiculous beyond all credibility

[Letters]

They won 14 games from 19 and never allowed Bayern to pull away at the top

Well, you say that. Bayern were 9 points ahead at the time of the world cup break. But certainly after the world cup Dortmund did well to chase them down. They won a series of games in a row. I guess you could regard that as relentless pressure. BUT that run only saw them draw level with Bayern on points. After that both teams' form was pretty patchy. It wasn't relentless pressure from either of them really.

had we managed 46 points from our last 19 games we’d have won the title

Well, sure. If we'd have got 96 points we'd have been champions. But I'd ask why you think that was a reasonable expectation given we all knew that our squad depth was lacking and could cost us, we all knew that our run in was a bit tough with 3 of the top 6 to play away and half way through the season we hadn't played City once. Repeating or even getting close to the form of the first half of the season always seemed improbable.

I also hold Arteta responsible for our poor form of late. And just giving up and handing the title to City was pathetic. But I can't help feel they'd have chased us down in the end. So I don't blame him for us not winning the title, that always felt beyond us. We never had the gap over City we needed to hold them off. But I do blame him for the way we gave up and let them win the title with games to spare.

[HCZ_Reborn]

It was to me, a reasonable expectation.

If you take last 19 games (second half of the season basically so including today)


Everton away
Brentford home
West Ham away
Southampton home
Brighton home
Nottingham Forest away
Wolves home

I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to expect we won five out of seven of those games, even winning half of them would potentially have taken things to the last game of the season.

[Letters]

You really need to stop including Brighton and Forest. We'd stopped bothering by then. I'm not defending that, but I honestly think they gave up when it was clear City weren't going to slip up. The other 4 where we slipped, sure. We should have won those. But you're going to get slips here and there. And some of those are offset by some good wins, notably at St James' Park where I think most of us expected dropped points. And those slips only account for 9 points. I don't think that would have been enough. It would have given the final table, but City had the flip flops out in the last 2 games having wrapped up the title and with Cup Finals to consider.

The big issue for us, aside from City winning a billion games in a row, was the head to heads. But...well, City are just better than us. Overall it's the fact we didn't push them to the last day that rankles with me. There were brief moments where I thought we could do it, but those moments were predicated on us getting certain results or City slipping and it never quite happened.