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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 22:28:09 GMT
Just been thinking about this. Now obviously it's not half as prestigious as the Champions League and of course, being the elite European competition we should be looking to be in it and at least advance to the last 16 nearly every season. But should we and football in general treat the Europa league with a bit more respect?
It's still a trophy that requires beating some good European sides to win it, hell Dortmund aren't even a seeded side in the last 32 and they were finalists of the Champions League 3 years ago. Amongst the other teams you have Porto, Liverpool, Valencia, Sevilla, Shakhtar, Marseille, Napoli, Fiorentina and many more. All decent teams in their own right.
No they're not the elite in football and of course there's more satisfaction in beating sides like Barca, Real, Juventus, Bayern etc to win a major trophy but part of me thinks seems we're in it we might as well try and win it. Surely winning a trophy is never a bad thing, especially when you're coming up to 3 seasons without one.
The biggest issue for me is that the League has to be our main priority and the Thursday night games are a bit of a killer and can seriously affect league form. But if we can rotate the side for the Europa and start to progress, as the tournament goes on I think fans would eventually start to appreciate the fact that it is a trophy and will go from being indifferent to winning it to actually wanting us to win it and backing the team to do so.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 22:33:11 GMT
I mean people have started to look at the League cup as an acceptable way of ending a trophy drought and have started to take it more seriously. Surely winning the Europa League is more of an achievement than the League cup?
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Post by redrover1958 on Dec 10, 2015 22:56:52 GMT
It is a competition Manchester United have never won and I feel Fergie disrespected it a while back.. Matt Busby risked everything when he stood up to the Football League and took United into Europe. We owe it to him to give it a go..
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Post by howAREya on Dec 10, 2015 23:00:48 GMT
Nope not for me. It's been well documented the struggles of teams in the EPL with the Thursday to Sunday/Monday transition especially with top teams like ourselves who didn't even start off in the competition.
Those teams used to playing in it right from the off or regularly dropping into it from the UCL will have some chance of acclimatizing to it.
Even less interested this season with the golden opportunity that has so far been presented to us in the League. We only need to see the injury crisis we got now. Shit can happen
If we started off in the competition from the beginning then maybe as we'd have been able to see the progress along the early stages. It wasn't our primary target at the start of European competition.
Lets face it if we can't claim either 1st or 2nd spot after 6 games in a group that contained CSKA, PSV & Wolfsburg then I certainly don't fancy us to do the business in the Europa League.
So I wouldn't be tempted to send out the first team and go all for it particularly if it's too the detriment to our league performances.
Should be used to blood the youngsters and players coming back from injuries or those getting lack of game time and with a point to prove. Not much in it for me after that
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 23:12:38 GMT
I wouldn't play a full strength team either. Rotate to players in need of games (whether that be players returning from injury or guys just spending a lot of time on the bench) and u21 players. I think if we progressed to say, the last 8 with understrength sides (I know it's unlikely), people would start to change their mind a bit and say actually winning it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Of course the league has to stay the number 1 priority and if we're still struggling with injuries I'd advocate us literally just sending the u21's out there but who knows what our injury situation will be like in the new year, by the time we play our first game in the Europa we could be injury free.
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Post by spens1 on Dec 11, 2015 1:10:51 GMT
waste of time, i'd say play the kids and anyone who realistically ain't really going to get playing time, or to play people into form (Looking at you rooney)
the competition means absolutely nothing, pretty sure even if we won and won the super cup we don't go to the club world championship anyway (which again, that doesn't mean that much but its more than the bloody europa league)
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Post by Splendid Spy on Dec 11, 2015 3:25:45 GMT
If we go on to win the cup we will automatically qualify to the Champions League...just like what Sevilla did this season. Therefore I think it's as important if not more important than the fa cup. Another backdoor for us to qualify to the CL. Why waste such opportunity? If it's 2 seasons ago it's different though.
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Post by Splendid Spy on Dec 11, 2015 3:29:39 GMT
It is a competition Manchester United have never won and I feel Fergie disrespected it a while back.. Matt Busby risked everything when he stood up to the Football League and took United into Europe. We owe it to him to give it a go.. don't really think he disrespected the competition. Just that we hardly qualify for it. Just once if I can recall correctly in the 90s. The season we were 2nd behind Blaxkburn. English clubs were banned in the late 80s and we were always in the CL after that. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2015 10:50:53 GMT
The old UEFA cup was a big deal back in the day, all European nights were, but things got bastardised along the way.
I think if Thursday nights starts to interfere with the league then we'll be putting the kids out, and that will come from the top.
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Post by Rach1986 on Dec 11, 2015 14:54:39 GMT
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Post by Dave on Dec 11, 2015 14:55:57 GMT
LVG has pretty much said that we'll compete, only time will tell really.
We don't have a pretty big squad anyway so I'd have expected a middle ground team to be thrown out, fielding a load of youth would be disrespectful and I wouldn't have had LVG down to do that.
As Ed says if it starts to interfere with the league then put it on the back burner.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2015 15:18:22 GMT
Yeah a mixture of youth and players in need of games is the way it should go. I'd still play De Gea every game seems he's a keeper. Then thinking about us with a fully fit squad you'd still be able to put something out pretty competitive without it being at full strength. Plus we're likely to bring in a player or 2 in January which will bolster the squad. Don't see any reason why we shouldn't try and win it whilst, as you say, making sure it doesn't interfere with our league form.
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Post by Rach1986 on Dec 11, 2015 16:17:05 GMT
I am on the YES side ..... providing our league form does not suffer in the process Silverware is Silverware when all said and done ..................................... Plus the final is in Basel - I live 15 mins away  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2015 12:23:14 GMT
We're off to Denmark against Midtyjlland.
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Post by Dave on Dec 14, 2015 12:23:35 GMT
Midtjylland v Manchester United
Danes, alright.
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