season expectations now for next season

[Letters]

there is a lot less luck involved with picking a team serious enough to win a domestic cup.

I'm not sure what that means. We've been in enough Cup semi-finals since we last won something, and a couple of finals, to suggest it's not that we're just not bothering.

[Joker]

Wenger has shown the cups disrespect though, irrespective of the fact that we've been in semi finals and finals. We played a B side in the Carling Cup final against Chelsea and lost, the same against Tottenham in the Carling Cup semi finals in 2007-2008, and I remember when he dropped an in form Arshavin in the FA Cup semi final against Chelsea in 2008-2009. This is without even mentioning the times we've been knocked out by the likes of Bolton, Blackburn and Stoke in the early rounds where we definitely did field an understrength team. Yes there is luck involved in the cup, but if you take it seriously enough and really go for it, there's no reason why we can't win them, if we add 3-4 quality players (who aren't on City/United/Chelsea's radar, like we did with Podolski). If you look at the cup finalists in the last 10 years or so it's been the usual suspects anyway, so it's clear that if you have the quality and the motivation, you can progress far in the cup and it's not all down to dumb luck (otherwise we'd have teams like West Brom winning it).

[Kano]

I'm not sure what that means. We've been in enough Cup semi-finals since we last won something, and a couple of finals, to suggest it's not that we're just not bothering.

carling cup semi's where we stick with a weaker team as some sort of reward, when really it doesn't benefit the club. semi-finals mean bugger all after a while if thats the best we can achieve. our fa cup failures in recent years have been down to poor teams being put out.

when we used to take it seriously, we were in a lot more finals. chelsea and utd continued to take them seriously and have continued to get into the final.