Quote Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory View Post
We've had clubs win domestic cups but end up relegated in the same season. It's no way to measure progress and I'd fear more for Wenger's job if he'd finish outside of the Top 4 but still won the FA Cup. In fact, I think we'd be waving goodbye to a few players if we lost our CL place.
Domestic cups are all about appeasing the fans, but I don't buy the notion that big clubs aren't interested in either. For me it's only the FA that have gone out of their way to devalue the competition by a mixture of holding the final at times when the league season is still going on and moving the kick off time
Wigan are the only team I can think of to win the FA cup and get relegated in the same season, we have Birmingham and the league cup final but that was a result of our bungling rather than lack of big team interest. And the minnows winning either cup competition is still an outlier rather than a trend.
Overall though yes I have to accept your premise that sucess In a cup competition is not an indicator of progress, especially as in the 2005/2006 we have gone further in the European cup than in the clubs history and despite this in the league we were as poor as I ever remember us being, especially away from home where we lost 9 times (the kind of away form we showed in GG's last season)