Topic: Does the FA cup really matter any more?

[Skeeve]

Good points.

The big cups care for it more than they let on as it adds to their silverware profile if nothing else

I'm guessing you meant big clubs there and if so, it isn't so much that they care for it so much as they have the depth in their squads that they stand a good chance of getting to the later rounds without using their full first elevens, by which point it becomes worth caring about.

[Alan B'Stard]

Perhaps the FA cup doesn't rank alongside the league title or European cup, but I don't think it ever has. For me it's silverware which is what this great club stands for.

Don't know about anyone else, but I would certainly prefer it if we had more than 7 wins.

[CHOPPER]

On a balance sheet, maybe. Id love to win a cup any day of the week.

But does an FA cup or a league cup, swell the bank, entice bigger and better players in, keep the clubs profile in the consciousness of the people beyond these shores?

Its all well  good having an FA cup or even a league cup in the cabinet, but they are not on the top to do list any more. The footballing landscape has changed and a 2nd, 3rd or 4th, far outweigh these two domestic cups.


Thats not to devalue all the success that has happened before, its just as I say, the landscape has changed and goalposts have moved on and these two cups are being left behind season on season. Sure if you're in the final it feels like it is  all that and it matters, but at the start of a season, a nice to have but not a main aim.

[red1977]

Play offs between 3rd place and the league cup winners and 4th place and the FA cup winners for CL places.

Or a trio of games between 4th place, FA & league cup winners for the last spot.

Because everybody loves more matches to fit into the fixture list.

Oh, and releasing an embarassing cup final single featuring players on vocals should be mandatory.

There's some legs in that imo. The league cup should be a bonus comp, but 4th vs fa cup winners for a champs league place would be perfect as it makes the FA cup more relevant and therefore a tougher competition to win and it does not particularly devalue the league. Maybe fourth place should work a little harder to get into the champs league?.

[Dench57]

That would still make winning the FA Cup by far the easiest way to qualify for Europe's top table. Unless you added some convoluted hoops to jump through - games against 4th place and then further qualifying rounds against other continental cup winners/runners up or something. Congesting the fixture list even more though.

[JerseyKloppite]

But does an FA cup or a league cup, swell the bank, entice bigger and better players in, keep the clubs profile in the consciousness of the people beyond these shores?

I know what you mean, but my overwhelming reaction to this was - who cares? Some things should be for the fans, a day out at Wembley, a captain lifting the trophy, another proud achievement for the club. We shouldn't just be concerned about bank balances, wooing new players and whether Joe in Dallas or Steve in Australia care about the FA Cup.

The aim of competing is to win, and so we should aim to win the competitions in which we take part. The FA Cup is the third biggest trophy we compete for after the league and CL and is a major competition.

My best memories of supporting the team, particularly if I can't get to a many matches as an OOT, include cup finals and European nights. The treble in 2001, the FA Cup in 2006, the two finals in 2012. I don't remember where we finished in the league in 2006 but I remember all six goals from the final and where I was when I was watching.

I do wonder if people would think differently if we'd have won the FA Cup in the last decade. I can't pretend it has the significance to the fans that it once did but I do think it's a real shame that it seems to have been relegated to the lowest on the list of clubs' priorities and viewed in part as an inconvenience at a busy time of year. The pursuit of European football for its own sake is a noble one, but the pursuit of it over domestic titles simply for financial gain just seems a bit hollow.

I know that an FA Cup under Kenny or Jurgen would have made the last 10 largely trophy-less years a fair bit more bearable.

[CraigDS]

Dislike the idea of a play off. Both finishing in the top 4 and winning the FA Cup should be rewarded, not with then having to play an additional game to earn the reward.

[lessthanmatt]

Domestics cups are nice. You certainly want to be in them rather than out of them. They're a plus one to your overall trophy count when you win one. But it's only the league and Champions League that retain proper prestige for the big clubs in 2018.

Something like:

Champions League > Premier League >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FA Cup > League Cup.


though some people might swap the first two

[John C]

I know that an FA Cup under Kenny or Jurgen would have made the last 10 largely trophy-less years a fair bit more bearable.

I understand what you mean about the financial aspect Chops, or indeed the status, but I'm firmly in JK's camp, I love any cup-run.
The FA Cup is boss when you're in it in the latter stages.

[Roady]

To be fair I’d love to win it as it’s a trophy, but when the third round comes in I honestly just wish it was a premier league weekend of football. 😬

[Gerry Attrick]

To be fair I’d love to win it as it’s a trophy, but when the third round comes in I honestly just wish it was a premier league weekend of football. 😬

Third round is the only time it's properly exciting really. After that the novelty wears off for me.

[Statto Red]

Third round is the only time it's properly exciting really. After that the novelty wears off for me.

I used to look forward to the 3rd round nowadays i feel meh when it comes around & rather have a full league fixture list instead, most teams tend to put out a second string team, concentrating on the league & that includes teams in the lower divisions.

Also The FA haven't helped, the semis should not be at Wembley & the final should be 3pm kickoff.

[Son of Spion]

I used to love the FA Cup, but I don't even watch the final these days unless we are in it.
The competition used to feel like it meant something. It had a certain romance and prestige. These days it has none of that, for me.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love us to win it, just as I'd love us to win everything we are in for, but it's not the same now.

I agree the Semi's should not be at Wembley. This just devalues it further for me. It should be Saturday, 3pm too.

Clubs don't seem to take the FA cup seriously anymore, so why should the fans?
To be honest, I had to check to see who's in this years final. That's how interested I've been in it since we went out.

[WEST HAM PAUL]

To me the FA Cup is still very relevant.

My question would be “ Does the Champions League matter anymore “

Ok maybe tongue in cheek but put into perspective there’s only 6 clubs with any interest . Including non League over 100 or more clubs have an interest in the FA Cup be it just a good cup run , a giantkilling or just a special moment that can put that club in the spotlight briefly

I’ve not watched a Champions League game for about 3 years . It’s boring & predictable for the most part .

You guys come from a club with a totally different perspective as it’s huge for you something that’s a huge part of your history. 

Not just as a West Ham fan but most fans not if they are fans of the reasonably regular top 6 have none or very little interest
The interest mainly to see the other English clubs lose

My mates who are Watford, West Brom etc fans we don’t chat Champions League. ( We chat relegation 😂)

Sky propaganda since 1992 has helped as they had no rights to show the FA Cup they dismissed it as they have done most club & player records Pre 1992

It’s sad that the cost now of relegation from the premier league has caused clubs to field weaker teams & take it less serious. It’s possible over time with most clubs having overseas managers now they may not have the historical connection to the FA Cup

Lots of things over the years have changed & still most winners are the big clubs over last 20 years or so Ask any supporter outside the top 6 if they’d like to win the FA Cup , 100% they would.

Plus with all due respect & without delving to deep into it but with Hillsborough I’m bit surprised any Liverpool fan would see the FA cup as irrelevant. To me it would hold a special resonance

Don’t wish to offend anyone it would just be my feelings on it .

[Frank Becton]

Would love to win the FA Cup, to me it's still a trophy with prestige, let's face it we need to win something.

I agree the semi's shouldn't be at Wembley it has taken some of the gloss off the competetion.

[Red_Mist]

In my mind it depends where you are as a club at any given point in time.  It feels less important to us at the moment because of where we are.  There’s a feel good factor about finishing top four that we had missed for several years and the CL final of course dwarfs the FA Cup.  And of course it’s top 4 that gave us this chance for number 6 in the first place.  So top 4 and everything that goes with it, attracting players, building momentum, the financial side, but most important of all the feel good factor seems massive...and the FA Cup by comparison seems a bit meh.

But when we were finishing outside the top 4 we’d have loved to win the FA Cup. There were threads on Rawk when it seemed like we needed to prioritise one or the other that rightly pointed towards all the previous FA Cup triumphs and described the fantastic and memorable occasions that they all were. (although ‘92 was a bit dull if we’re honest!)  And in fact, I think the next one will be great too whenever it comes around, because of the gap without it.  At THAT time the consensus was that a ‘top 4 trophy’ was bullshit and the main priority was silverware.  I was firmly in that camp.  It was a valid argument then and still is one, it’s just that we’ve moved on from then so you’re looking at it from a different angle.

So...it’s impossible to say that ‘from this point forward it’s not important’ or doesn’t really matter any more.  Because chances are it will matter again (like when we next go on a good run in it!)  But hopefully it’ll remain ‘less important’ to us than it used to, because that will probably mean we’re doing well and competing for the trophies that we REALLY want to win.

[LallanaInPyjamas]

On a balance sheet, maybe. Id love to win a cup any day of the week.

Is beating Hoffenheim, Spartak Moscow, Porto, Man City and Roma really only better on a balance sheet than beating Derby, Yeovil, Huddersfield, Brighton and Spurs?

[stevieG786]

Ofcourse it does, it pisses me off that we haven't won it since 2006. I loved it when we won the league cup under Kenny, i'd be over joyed if we won the FA cup again. I guess the European cup will have to do this season 

[Perseus]

Championship Play-off Final is bigger game in my calendar.

[Purple Red]

When United lose the final, yes.

[quinny]

Move the League Cup to earlier in the season (so it’s done by Christmas), scrap replays and give the winner a Champions League group stage place rather than 4th. Really all you have to do is the latter and everyone would take it more seriously.

[Linudden]

They fucked it a couple of times in the last few years - when they let United duck out of it and when they moved the final to 5.30. Oh, and moving the semis to Wembley.

True. They should have one semi in Liverpool/Manchester (Anfield/Etihad) rotating every other year and one in the North East in Newcastle/Sunderland every other year to bring those moments out from the capital again. Villa Park is too small for such an occasion nowadays, so wouldn't make sense.

If they required bigger stadiums than those, make it Old Trafford and Millennium Stadium, with the caveat that United would have to play theirs in Cardiff to avoid home turf.

[Linudden]

Move the League Cup to earlier in the season (so it’s done by Christmas), scrap replays and give the winner a Champions League group stage place rather than 4th. Really all you have to do is the latter and everyone would take it more seriously.

UEFA's rulebook doesn't allow that.

I've heard the FA wanted to give a CL spot to the FA Cup winner but were rebuffed. To be honest I'd be in favour of that as a rule for the four big leagues with their domestic cups to make sure all teams took the competitions seriously.

[quinny]

UEFA's rulebook doesn't allow that.

I've heard the FA wanted to give a CL spot to the FA Cup winner but were rebuffed. To be honest I'd be in favour of that as a rule for the four big leagues with their domestic cups to make sure all teams took the competitions seriously.

Ah didn’t know that. In that case nothing will really change - all about the top 4 in this day and age.

[GreatEx]

Well I completely forgot it was on, then heard the score on the morning radio. So I guess that's my answer.

[El Lobo]

This Champions League idea is so daft, thankfully it'd never ever happen 

From what I can see, apart from Arsenal last season who usually finish top 4, the only two teams in the last twenty years would have been Wigan and Portsmouth. Are we seriously suggesting we'd want them in the CL? Teams do take it seriously. The semi finals were United, Chelsea, Spurs and Southampton. That doesn't mean teams didn't take it seriously, I'd say the opposite. You're never going to get all the strongest sides go through, its luck of the draw and occasionally you'll get a shock but the teams who have won it over the last two decades suggest that it is still taken seriously.

No-one cared this season because the final, and semi finals, have been between massively uninspiring, boring sides.

[Lycan]

The FA Cup presentation is shite. Needs to get back to the captain picking it up first, holding it aloft and then passing it down the line.

[reniformis]

This Champions League idea is so daft, thankfully it'd never ever happen 

From what I can see, apart from Arsenal last season who usually finish top 4, the only two teams in the last twenty years would have been Wigan and Portsmouth. Are we seriously suggesting we'd want them in the CL? Teams do take it seriously. The semi finals were United, Chelsea, Spurs and Southampton. That doesn't mean teams didn't take it seriously, I'd say the opposite. You're never going to get all the strongest sides go through, its luck of the draw and occasionally you'll get a shock but the teams who have won it over the last two decades suggest that it is still taken seriously.

No-one cared this season because the final, and semi finals, have been between massively uninspiring, boring sides.

I agree, UEFA would never allow their showpiece competition to be diluted in such a way. OK, if you look at the winners it doesn't look all that different but if you look at the teams that made the final (especially if like now the European spot can be given to the runners up if the winners qualified via another route) you'd have potentially had Palace, Villa, Hull, Stoke, Cardiff and fucking Everton as well as Portsmouth (twice) and Wigan in the CL just in the last 10 years, some of whom weren't even in the premier league never mind the top 4. It could be even worse if other countries did it as well. Not to mention it would have meant us not qualifying these last two seasons, although Kennys team of Downing, Carroll and Adam would have in a year when only the top 2 in the league would have got in (Chelsea got in as CL holders). Seriously, no thanks.

[LovelyCushionedHeader]

Move the League Cup to earlier in the season (so it’s done by Christmas).

Definitely agree with this. The League Cup should be finished before league teams enter the FA Cup.

I think there could also be an argument for no teams competing in Europe playing in the League Cup. Firstly to reduce the fixture congestion for these teams, secondly to allow the above to happen, and thirdly to enable smaller clubs to win trophies and therefore take it more seriously.

[rafathegaffa83]

Having the semis at Wembley has devalued it a lot. It also doesn't help that in the past 25 years, only eight different clubs have won it: Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City, Everton, Portsmouth and Wigan. It has increasingly become a tournament without much in the way of competitiveness. Compare that to the previous quarter century, which had a much more diverse pool of winners: WBA, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Utd, Southampton, Spurs, Wimbledon, Liverpool, Everton, Leeds, Sunderland, West Ham, Ipswich, Coventry. The romance of the FA Cup is all marketing for the 3rd round. If a smaller club does get to the final, they are invariably beaten by a bigger side most of the time

[Iska]

I wonder if the answer is that it matters the same as it always did, it’s just that the league has grown so much that it dwarfs it now?  I mean it still gets decent coverage in the build-up, loads of people watch it, the winners still get a big parade.  But because the league has gone from middling coverage up to the 80s, to being absolutely everywhere nowadays, it looks like the FA Cup has gone downhill when really it’s just stayed where it is.

Like how loads more people still like having a cuppa of tea, but if you looked at any High Street you’d think this was a coffee country now.

[Flaccido Dongingo]

I think it's a pile of shit, granted my opinion counts for fuck all, but there it is anyway.

Seriously though, I despise this whole "magic of the cup" shit in the early rounds, it's saccharine nauseating bollocks, purposely manufactured to produce this feeling of romanticism, and don't get me started on the one sided thinly veiled biased commentary when a plucky underdog is taking on a bigger team, fuck that.

[Purple Red]

This Champions League idea is so daft, thankfully it'd never ever happen 

From what I can see, apart from Arsenal last season who usually finish top 4, the only two teams in the last twenty years would have been Wigan and Portsmouth. Are we seriously suggesting we'd want them in the CL? Teams do take it seriously. The semi finals were United, Chelsea, Spurs and Southampton. That doesn't mean teams didn't take it seriously, I'd say the opposite. You're never going to get all the strongest sides go through, its luck of the draw and occasionally you'll get a shock but the teams who have won it over the last two decades suggest that it is still taken seriously.

No-one cared this season because the final, and semi finals, have been between massively uninspiring, boring sides.

Wholeheartedly agree. I'd love to see Klopp get his hands on the FA Cup. No matter what anybody says, it's still an achievement. We've had plenty of good sides over the past decade or so that found it difficult to get near winning it so it's still a great effort to get your hands on it.

[stevensr123]

It would be interested if this thread was created if we as in the final or if we won it, My guess it 99% of you would be changing your minds pretty quickly.

It's a trophy with a shit load of glorious history, of course it matters and I would love to win it!.

That said, it's obvious its become a lesser trophy due to the money champions league brings in.

My personal opinion is they should make the winnings near enough the same as a champions league spot (if that is even possible?)

scrap replays and Don't play the semi's at Wembley and give both teams (regardless of if the the teams win it) a spot in the Europa league.

The league cup is a pretty much poor competition though I think, doesn't have the history to match the FA cup really, I personally think they should make that a competition that anyone who finishes outside the top 4 is in it -  gives other clubs a greater chance of actually winning a trophy.

 

[Red Beret]

The FA Cup will always be important to me; silverware is silverware.  Maybe we wouldn't have an open top bus parade for winning it these days - unless we won another trophy alongside it - but I will always punch the air when our captain lifts a trophy.

That said, I really think that PL clubs should no longer compete for the league cup.  I've raised these points before but it's worth reiterating them.

First, it's the football league cup; as the PL is run by the FA should PL clubs be competing in it?  Take them out and it's a top top prize for the lower leagues to pursue.

Second, the prize money is £100k.  For the extra games your players are playing, and the injuries they are risking, is it worth it?  Sure if you want to play your youngsters and give them some game time then it can be considered valuable experience; but if that's the case, and folding back into my first point above, perhaps PL teams should be limited to fielding their under 23s?

I take no pleasure in saying this because Liverpool own that competition.  But from a hard nosed competitive perspective, £100 grand these days wont pay for the cost of Rooney's next hair weave, or Fat Sam's next bender.

[kopconnor]

I would love Liverpool to win the FA cup. Trophies are rare these days let’s win what we can

[surfer. Fuck you generator.]

Nah.

It doesn't matter what field it is, the expectation, pressure, and ultimately joy at the achievement depends on the quality of the incentive. The cup mattered when winning it (and the run to get there) was still noteworthy financially, fans didn't have so many games to watch to the point of saturation. These days not getting relegated is about 10 times more valuable than winning the cup, we get to watch all games from the Bulgarian second division if we want, where's the incentive?

If there's a Champions league spot or 100 million pounds on offer for the champions, it'll matter again.

Edit: Actually, last-placed West Brom received about 95 million this season in prize / tv money, and that's obviously the lowest a PL team received. You could shave 5 million each off the 20 teams, not a considerable drop relatively for them, end up with a total pot of 100 million. Shaving 10 million off each would still be reasonable,  transfer fees and wages are getting inflated, the money isn't being put to particularly great use, there's fat to play with. A 200 million pot for the Cup winners, the Cup just turned into prime Monica Belluci.

A  PL team wins that, it's a significant boost. A non PL team wins it, it's reality-altering.

[CHOPPER]

5th round now squashed into a mid-week and no more replays. It really is getting in the way of the stuff that matters. 4th. 

[Peabee]

5th round now squashed into a mid-week and no more replays. It really is getting in the way of the stuff that matters. 4th.

All replays should be fucked off. Just have pens after 90.

[idontknow]

Not at the moment.