Don't get me wrong, we all know this will soon be forgotten about, but I just can't understand some of our fans reaction to our cup displays in the last decade. Our record is nothing short of a disgrace.
And the easy acceptance by fans, just seems to add to the apparent "could not give a f**k" attitude to cups, running through the club since at least 99/00.
Football is about entering and competing in competitions.
I know the league is more important to us (thats obvious), but having a good cup campaign, does not have to effect that in a negative way.
Winning football games (no matter what comp) can only breed confidence.
And we are skint. Get through two rounds and the big boys come in. Draw one of them and it could lead to much needed income and a potential great night.
Add to that, the fact fans are paying good money to support the team in these games.
I just can't understand our acceptance to the continued crap served up in cup competitions. Im obviously in a minority though.
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On an aside, can you sort me out a piss-up in a brewery? Cheers.
If we'd taken 2,000 there last night I would agree, but when the fans don't care enough to go, but only care enough to complain on a Forum from the comfort of their home (or office), then we can hardly expect a first eleven killing themselves for a win.
For the record I'm not criticising those that didn’t go, as I would only have gone had it been at home, but as fans if we can’t be bothered to make cup games a priority then why should the club.
I agree with you overall and to be fair if we were still premieship then fine... even championship club...
But at the moment, Im sure Im not alone in the fact that we Sooooo clearly IMHO have much more importnat games and with a very very thin squad we cant risk importnat players...
Until we are championship or have a much bigger/deeper squad I really wouldnt care if we forfeited from all the cups...
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BUT with a small squad and financial problems choices sometimes have to be made. If playing a weakened squad in a cup competition gives us a better chance of promotion which hopefully means both better football and help to the finances then I for one can live with that.
As an unseeded team we would have to beat one of the following:
Everton, Birmingham, Blackburn Rovers, Stoke, Fulham, Sunderland, Bolton, Wolves, Wigan, West Ham, Newcastle, West Brom, Blackpool, Burnley, Hull, Portsmouth, Leicester, Swansea, Middlesbrough, Ipswich, Watford, Preston, Cardiff*, Sheffield United*, Reading*.
I can't see a big payday in many of those games. Sure is we drew one of the three mentioned away that would probably be enough to break even, but even with out first eleven out I'm not sure we'd beat any of those teams save for Portsmouth.
Frankly we are better off out of the competition in my view.
It's thier job, this is our hobbie!
Players performance should not depend on fans turning up.
I'm convinced there are loads of clubs all over the country who have done nothing in the cup for 10 years. In the Premiership we didn't really have an excuse, but now we're in League 1 I don't think last night's defeat is a disaster. Of course I'd rather we won, but it's not that big a deal.
You can either look at the bright side, and say that hopefully our young players can learn something about last night's debacle and that it's good that Abbott and Martin are off the mark. Or you can get really annoyed about it, which isn't much fun really. I know which one I'll choose.
Obviously I am in a minority as others think that a team that has to play 3 games in a week at the start of the season has to 'rested' and avoid injury to key players.
All very well but some of the key players, Reid, and Doc came on anyway!
Like the FA cup game last year, I am sure it will seem a memory in a week or two!, but an unpleasant one at that.
Yes we know the league is all important, so if it is so 'irrelevent' put out the kids then!......
So the JPT will be the same and the FA cup as well....... just so we know!. Amazing seeing that Parky called the performance at Northwich 'unacceptable' that people seem happy to accept it!...... for the greater good!
The Northwich performance was unacceptable because the players didn't put a shift in not because they lost.
The point I was making was more to so with the choice of the eleven that start. I suspect that all the players gave their all last night. My wording perhaps failed to emphasise what I wanted to say "we can hardly expect a FIRST ELEVEN killing themselves for a win".
As for the hobbie/job comment. That's fine just as long as you don't have a problem with booing, and just as long as you don't expect fans to cheer and sing and try to raise the team. Either it's a hobby where we sometimes watch and sonetimes don't and we can cheer and boo as we see fit, or we are fans that are stakeholders of the club and the club is us and we are the club. You can't have it both ways.
If the fans don't care about the cup then who is to say that it is the Manager's or the players' job to make it a priority? After all it's only a job!
My problem is that our cup form seems to make absolutely no chuffing difference to our league form anyway. It’s all very well to say every time we get bounced out of a cup by a team below us in the league that it’ll help us get promotion/stay up/push on/whatever but where’s the evidence for this? Did losing to Northwich last year result in us going on an unbeaten run of wins and walking away with the league then? (weren’t we out of all cup competitions by what Nov/Dec last year). Dunno about anyone else but I've seen no upside to getting stiffed in the cups year on year.
Those discounting last night’s result as ‘a bit disappointing but more of an inconvenience to be got out of the way’ are maybe are looking at the issue in isolation and not taking into account that it happens every year without fail and after a while surely even the most optimistic supporter has to say enough is enough. Don't they? Or what would it take?
I guess at the end of the day some fans care more about the cup results than others. I don't really care, it doesn't make me right, but I suspect it doesn't make me wrong either.
Exactly.
In isolation, its a take-it-or-leave-it defeat in an unnecessary cup which we could in honesty do without with a threadbare squad.
Collectively though its yet another chapter to add to the ever growing embarrassing book of 'Charlton limping out of cups at the first opportunity to lower division teams',
I don't try to find it both ways.
If people want to boo, thats entirely their choice, you won't find me doing it, but nor will you find me those condeming those who do, claiming they should be banned from the valley and hung on harvey gardens.
Not only does winning become a habit but it is often the team that wants it the most that wins.
If the fans have a shoulder-shrugging attitude then the players are going to not care either.
We should care and we should want to win and just blindly accept that we haven't.
If we fail to get promoted at the end of the season but do really well in the cup then we might not think the season is a total waste.
It's exactly the same for the majority of other sqauds in our league at this time of the season.
Also, people are saying that all teams treat the League cup with disdain - I think that is only true of the early rounds of the competition - once you get closer to getting your hands on the trophy, the attitude changes (I'm obviously having to imagine this, so bear with me!).
I think you have to pick 5 first teamers in the JPT.
As an unseeded team we would have to beat one of the following:
Everton, Birmingham, Blackburn Rovers, Stoke, Fulham, Sunderland, Bolton, Wolves, Wigan, West Ham, Newcastle, West Brom, Blackpool, Burnley, Hull, Portsmouth, Leicester, Swansea, Middlesbrough, Ipswich, Watford, Preston, Cardiff*, Sheffield United*, Reading*.
I can't see a big payday in many of those games. Sure is we drew one of the three mentioned away that would probably be enough to break even, but even with out first eleven out I'm not sure we'd beat any of those teams save for Portsmouth.
Frankly we are better off out of the competition in my view.[/quote]
West Ham away would have been a decent payday, as would a few of the others.
If you think that missing out on another souce of revenue at a time when we don't have a pot to piss in is a good thing then fair enough, I would disagree that we are better off out of it.