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)
Neither side look great, Luton the better team though, cause problems from set pieces like against Sunderland
Luton in front, nice bit of football in fairness.
You’re right. It’s the results that mean they didn’t put Bayern under “relentless” pressureQuote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
W6 D4 L1 in their last 11 games.
11 points dropped from 33, including losing the head to head with Bayern.
If you think that’s “relentless pressure” then you’re bloody crackers.
I didn’t mention Arteta.Quote:
The extent you want to go to to be exculpatory to Arteta is mind blowing to me.
And I don’t know what exculpatory means.
I’m just calling bullshit on your claim about Dortmund’s “relentless pressure”.
In the run in they dropped plenty of points. Had either Bayern or Dortmund been In relentless form they’d have won it long before the last day. The truth is neither side covered themselves in glory in the run in. It’s a shame Dortmund shat themselves today, it would have been nice to have a different champion.
They won 14 games from 19 and never allowed Bayern to pull away at the topQuote:
Originally Posted by Letters
They took the lead in the Bundesliga three times. They lost only one game post World Cup
They bottled it massively at the end with what seemed like an open goal to win the Bundesliga. We collapsed, had we managed 46 points from our last 19 games we’d have won the title
It’s all about Arteta because this pointless argument started because I was clear I hold him responsible for our collapse. As I said long before April we were where we were despite him not because of him. Would our talented group of players have got over the line if we had a coach that wasn’t a conceited sociopath who knows. I’d like to think we wouldn’t have embarrassed ourselves against West Ham, Southampton, Brighton and Forest
Luton still leading, not a game that will last long in the memory. Luton comfortably better side, but a cursory glance at their fixtures show Luton were leading both games but pegged back by Coventry
And as I say that Coventry equalise :haha:
I think Luton have had three goals chalked off in this match. Near pelanty time
Luton win 6-5 on penalties and get back into the top flight for the first time since 1992 where they were relegated in the last season of the first division before it became the premier league.
Kenilworth Road will be a premier league ground :haha:
Luton in the PL. :haha:
I mean there’s no way they’re surviving next year but what a story.
Famous last words but don’t think either of those sides playing tonight looked like premier league teamsQuote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
Then again sides like that have generally faired better than yo yo teams like Fulham, West Brom, Norwich etc
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
Train?Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
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 ( :rolleyes: ) that they’re minnows, historically that isn’t quite true. Never giants of the game, but I remember them in the first division.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
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 itQuote:
Originally Posted by Letters
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
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.
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
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
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.Quote:
had we managed 46 points from our last 19 games we’d have won the title
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.
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.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
No I especially include Brighton and Forest…for me they are almost more unacceptable than the other games. I can understand the fear involved with chasing a title and that accounts for games like West Ham and Southampton. Brighton despite your insistence to the contrary was about tactical ineptitude…we allowed Brighton to play their game at the Emirates (lack of plan B I alluded to in another thread) and Forest was just Arteta throwing out a tactical fuck you.
I don’t know how clearer I can make this, you push City every step of the way…make them have to focus on getting the wins against Brighton and Brentford the two games that were their hardest right at the end of the season. Might they have won them both had they not already been champions? Possibly but no guarantee…make them fucking sweat for it in two difficult away games.
We didn’t do that, I’m fucking furious…for all the back and forth it’s as simple as that
To me they are completely unacceptable. I can accept slips in games here and there when you have City bearing down on you, winning every game. But just to give up like that was pathetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
Which I have said numerous times. My real annoyance is we didn't push them to the final day. My gut feeling is they'd have won it anyway - they did it twice against Liverpool when they pushed them all the way. But make them win it, don't just give it to them. I don't even know what we are arguing about, we're saying the same thing here.Quote:
I don’t know how clearer I can make this, you push City every step of the way….
Even if you were of the opinion that City would have pipped us anyway, I don’t think anyone quite expected it to be the anti-climactic procession that it was. That’s where the real disappointment of this season lies.
Exactly, it's not been good enough, I just hope Arteta, the team and the club learn their lessonsQuote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
I literally keep saying that. :shrug:
But when you serve it with a big dollop of Fatalism (oh what do you expect with city etc) don’t be surprised that, that’s all anyone can tasteQuote:
Originally Posted by Letters
The idea that City would have mown us down anyway is not contradictory to the idea that our capitulation made it far too easy for them in the end. Come on dude, this isn’t rocket salad. Surely people on here can cope with both those things being true.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
One I don’t think it’s necessarily true. When you’re five points clear with nine games remaining. There’s no inevitability that City would win, just like it wasn’t inevitable and in fact didn’t happen that one of the bigger clubs would overtake Leicester in 2016. Winning the title was far from an impossibilityQuote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Two it’s irrelevant to the discussion. All that matters is what we do, I’ve pointed out till I’m blue in the face where we went wrong and it’s got little or nothing to do with City.
Well of course. It wasn't a given City would win it. As you say, we were 5 points ahead with 9 games left. BUT those 9 games for us included Liverpool, Newcastle and City away. So the 5 points wasn't the commanding lead some in the "Arsenal bottled it" camp are trying to pretend. It was always likely we'd drop points. My hope was that City would get distracted by the CL and slip up here and there too but they just didn't. So it's with the hindsight that City just won every game including the head to head that I say that given our run in it was pretty likely that City were going to mow us down in the end.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
You're not saying anything revolutionary or insightful here. It was in our hands so yes, of course that means it doesn't matter what City did. And yes, we slipped up in games we shouldn't have. That made City's task easier.Quote:
Two it’s irrelevant to the discussion. All that matters is what we do, I’ve pointed out till I’m blue in the face where we went wrong and it’s got little or nothing to do with City.
But even if we'd won the West Ham and Southampton games - which I agree we should have - we'd still have been below City on GD in the run in given that they just kept winning. Obviously you can look back to other games - we shouldn't be losing away at Everton, but City shouldn't be losing at Spurs. They shouldn't lose at home to Brentford. You can play that game in any season.
I'm disappointed we didn't win the league, of course I am. It's the first season for a long time where I really felt we could. I don't even remember thinking that in 2016 although looking back at the table at various points last season we were closer to Leicester than I remembered. Being ahead for so long and not winning it is disappointing and I can't see us getting a better chance any time soon. But City have developed the annoying ability to get their slips out of the way in the first half of the season and then just go on long winning runs when it matters. My real annoyance with Arsenal this year, as I also keep saying till I'm blew in the face, is that we just gave up and handed it to them. I'm annoyed at the slips too but to just give up after City beat Everton is unacceptable.