FA Cup or Play-Offs

[jezzablade]

To be honest if we play like we did against Preston then even the small chance we did have against Hull has gone. Preston are the fourth best team in League 1 and totally out played us and were very unlucky not to score three and have a penalty, we have to play the three teams above them yet so again if we play like we did against Preston its curtains for the slight chance of the Play offs as well.
I think we have to look at fatigue as the reason our pacey midfield wasn't firing on all cylinders. I don't think we will get the choice. But I'm more than happy with the season and what NC has achieved even without either of the two competitions. We have made it to Wembley = Awesome, we were in serious relegation trouble and now we are almost safe with a phenomenal run = awesome.

 

[oldblade]

As opposed to being the first club to lose an FA Cup final to a non-league team

The Wanderers, Oxford University, Royal Engineers, Old Etonians, Clapham Rovers, Old Carthusians and Blackburn Olympic all won the FA Cup before our defeat at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur. None of those were league sides, so we can't have been the first side to lose an FA Cup final to a non league side!

 

[Darren]

The Wanderers, Oxford University, Royal Engineers, Old Etonians, Clapham Rovers, Old Carthusians and Blackburn Olympic all won the FA Cup before our defeat at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur. None of those were league sides, so we can't have been the first side to lose an FA Cup final to a non league side!

Ooh semantics!

All of those clubs won the cup before the Football League started of course

 

[Pinchy]

To be honest if we play like we did against Preston then even the small chance we did have against Hull has gone. Preston are the fourth best team in League 1 and totally out played us and were very unlucky not to score three and have a penalty, we have to play the three teams above them yet so again if we play like we did against Preston its curtains for the slight chance of the Play offs as well.
I think we have to look at fatigue as the reason our pacey midfield wasn't firing on all cylinders. I don't think we will get the choice. But I'm more than happy with the season and what NC has achieved even without either of the two competitions. We have made it to Wembley = Awesome, we were in serious relegation trouble and now we are almost safe with a phenomenal run = awesome.

That old myth. Luck didn't come into it. Don't tell us hitting the woodwork is bad luck. There's plenty of space in between the posts to aim at. The same goes for near misses. They scored exactly the number of goals they deserved, so did we. They also conceded exactly the number they deserved, as did we.

As for penalties, we had at least one claim more valid than theirs.

Bad luck is, for example, scoring a perfectly valid goal that is disallowed, or conceding one off the referee's arse. Imprecise finishing and great defending owe nothing to luck.

 

[oldblade]

Ooh semantics!

All of those clubs won the cup before the Football League started of course

Ah, but none of those clubs became league members when the league formed in 1888 either (or at any point afterwards). However, one of the teams beaten in a final by Old Etonians was a founder member of the football league - Blackburn Rovers.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

That old myth. Luck didn't come into it. Don't tell us hitting the woodwork is bad luck. There's plenty of space in between the posts to aim at. The same goes for near misses. They scored exactly the number of goals they deserved, so did we. They also conceded exactly the number they deserved, as did we.

As for penalties, we had at least one claim more valid than theirs.

Bad luck is, for example, scoring a perfectly valid goal that is disallowed, or conceding one off the referee's arse. Imprecise finishing and great defending owe nothing to luck.

Spot on Pinchy.

Two of my major football gripes are thus:

1) When a player has a shot and it hits the post and people say he was unlucky. No he wasn't, he had a shot and it hit the post, nothing more nothing less. When a player has a shot and it just sneaks inside the post nobody declares it to be lucky.

2) When people say that their team were unlucky to lose. No they weren't. 99.999% of the time in football you get exactly what you deserve and the result almost always reflects that.

If on Saturday against Wolves we battered them all match and had 90% possession and hit the post/bar 10 times but lost 0-1 in the last minute to a Wolves counter attack they would fully deserve the win.

 

[HeCanDoMagic]

To be honest if we play like we did against Preston then even the small chance we did have against Hull has gone. Preston are the fourth best team in League 1 and totally out played us and were very unlucky not to score three and have a penalty, we have to play the three teams above them yet so again if we play like we did against Preston its curtains for the slight chance of the Play offs as well.
I think we have to look at fatigue as the reason our pacey midfield wasn't firing on all cylinders. I don't think we will get the choice. But I'm more than happy with the season and what NC has achieved even without either of the two competitions. We have made it to Wembley = Awesome, we were in serious relegation trouble and now we are almost safe with a phenomenal run = awesome.

Football doesn't work at all like that. The team that lost 3-0 to Crewe also won at villa and Fulham.

 

[curtisblades]

In the long term I would rather see the team get into the Championship, although a cup win would do no harm

 

[itsinyerblood]

That old myth. Luck didn't come into it. Don't tell us hitting the woodwork is bad luck. There's plenty of space in between the posts to aim at. The same goes for near misses. They scored exactly the number of goals they deserved, so did we. They also conceded exactly the number they deserved, as did we.

As for penalties, we had at least one claim more valid than theirs.

Bad luck is, for example, scoring a perfectly valid goal that is disallowed, or conceding one off the referee's arse. Imprecise finishing and great defending owe nothing to luck.

Pinchers, I've been reading both your's and Nuddy's thoughts on this thing called luck.

To me, luck is no different to when someone buys 'lucky' heather or clothes pegs as a way of fending off dark spirits. There is no such thing as luck. There may be those who were fortunate, but the idea of luck seems to have it's roots in some type of primordial swamp. We sport's fans love the idea of luck, good or bad, as it helps explain something that has a more mundane explanation, much as you've already touched upon. A close call would better explain a near miss, but this reliance on luck is about as stupid a belief as I can think of.

United have not had bad luck that's contributed to where it currently finds itself. Mismanagement, an inability to learn from past mistakes, poor leadership from various chairmen, overall we've got it wrong. What's happened since Clough was appointed is that we've seen a gradual shift away from what we've become used to. At long last we have a manager who makes me believe that this club might be able to do something right for a change. Nothing to do with luck I might add, just a good appointment with a manager who seems a good fit for this club.

So the next time someone misses an open goal, mistimes a tackle, has a shot deflected, or does anything that you'd normally attribute to 'luck', just remind yourself that these things happen for reasons other than the intervention of mysterious, magical forces. Otherwise we'll always be ruled by this type of pointless mind-magic, and poor judgement will be fobbed off as 'bad luck'.

 

[Silent Blade]

We'll probably be able to discount this scenario in about 3 hours...

Well, well?

 

[Patrick Suffaux]

Cup Final for me. One of my personal ambitions to see my beloved Blades in the FA Cup Final. To me moments like that are what football is all about.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

Why would anyone not vote for the cup final?

It'll never happen again in any of our lifetimes.

 

[oldblade]

Pinchers, I've been reading both your's and Nuddy's thoughts on this thing called luck.

To me, luck is no different to when someone buys 'lucky' heather or clothes pegs as a way of fending off dark spirits. There is no such thing as luck. There may be those who were fortunate, but the idea of luck seems to have it's roots in some type of primordial swamp. We sport's fans love the idea of luck, good or bad, as it helps explain something that has a more mundane explanation, much as you've already touched upon. A close call would better explain a near miss, but this reliance on luck is about as stupid a belief as I can think of.

United have not had bad luck that's contributed to where it currently finds itself. Mismanagement, an inability to learn from past mistakes, poor leadership from various chairmen, overall we've got it wrong. What's happened since Clough was appointed is that we've seen a gradual shift away from what we've become used to. At long last we have a manager who makes me believe that this club might be able to do something right for a change. Nothing to do with luck I might add, just a good appointment with a manager who seems a good fit for this club.

So the next time someone misses an open goal, mistimes a tackle, has a shot deflected, or does anything that you'd normally attribute to 'luck', just remind yourself that these things happen for reasons other than the intervention of mysterious, magical forces. Otherwise we'll always be ruled by this type of pointless mind-magic, and poor judgement will be fobbed off as 'bad luck'.

I agree with most of that, but think there are exceptions.

When a side gets the equivalent of 54 points and has a positive goal difference and yet still gets relegated to the bottom tier of the football league, I think it might be allowed to consider itself unlucky.

 

[itsinyerblood]

I agree with most of that, but think there are exceptions.

When a side gets the equivalent of 54 points and has a positive goal difference and yet still gets relegated to the bottom tier of the football league, I think it might be allowed to consider itself unlucky.

I can see how you'd arrive at that decision, and those circumstances are truly exceptional, but it still subscribes to the same nonsense.

It doesn't actually matter whether it's acquiring 54 points, or a player scoring a hat-rick and still ending up on the losing side, the same factors apply. I'd certainly feel hard done by if I was part of a team with that many points and still found myself having to step down a tier for the following season. What I would hope is that I'd look at those clubs around my own and understand why we failed. Just because the circumstance was exceptional it doesn't mean that luck had anything to do with what happens.

Any success that SUFC have this season will be relative, but compared to how we've performed these last few seasons the upturn in this season's form is down to tangible facts, not luck or good fortune. I doubt whether successful teams or players achieve anything due to luck. Logically any success will happen because those responsible for leading these teams will make more good decisions than poor ones, which includes who they sign, how they play, and ensuring that team spirit is first rate. These are the qualities that contribute to whether you succeed or fail, not whether we have enough 'lucky' heather on the premises.

 

[Pinchy]

Pinchers, I've been reading both your's and Nuddy's thoughts on this thing called luck.

To me, luck is no different to when someone buys 'lucky' heather or clothes pegs as a way of fending off dark spirits. There is no such thing as luck. There may be those who were fortunate, but the idea of luck seems to have it's roots in some type of primordial swamp. We sport's fans love the idea of luck, good or bad, as it helps explain something that has a more mundane explanation, much as you've already touched upon. A close call would better explain a near miss, but this reliance on luck is about as stupid a belief as I can think of.

United have not had bad luck that's contributed to where it currently finds itself. Mismanagement, an inability to learn from past mistakes, poor leadership from various chairmen, overall we've got it wrong. What's happened since Clough was appointed is that we've seen a gradual shift away from what we've become used to. At long last we have a manager who makes me believe that this club might be able to do something right for a change. Nothing to do with luck I might add, just a good appointment with a manager who seems a good fit for this club.

So the next time someone misses an open goal, mistimes a tackle, has a shot deflected, or does anything that you'd normally attribute to 'luck', just remind yourself that these things happen for reasons other than the intervention of mysterious, magical forces. Otherwise we'll always be ruled by this type of pointless mind-magic, and poor judgement will be fobbed off as 'bad luck'.

"The harder I practice, the luckier I get"

Gary Player, legend.

 

[itsinyerblood]

"The harder I practice, the luckier I get"

Gary Player, legend.

Or in other words, the more he practiced the better he became.

 

[Pinchy]

Or in other words, the more he practiced the better he became.

And my word he was good.

The quotation is also ascribed to the equally great Arnold Palmer but, knowing quite a bit about the pair of them, it's more likely to have been the Sarth Effrikan.

 

[oldblade]

I can see how you'd arrive at that decision, and those circumstances are truly exceptional, but it still subscribes to the same nonsense.

It doesn't actually matter whether it's acquiring 54 points, or a player scoring a hat-rick and still ending up on the losing side, the same factors apply. I'd certainly feel hard done by if I was part of a team with that many points and still found myself having to step down a tier for the following season. What I would hope is that I'd look at those clubs around my own and understand why we failed. Just because the circumstance was exceptional it doesn't mean that luck had anything to do with what happens.

Any success that SUFC have this season will be relative, but compared to how we've performed these last few seasons the upturn in this season's form is down to tangible facts, not luck or good fortune. I doubt whether successful teams or players achieve anything due to luck. Logically any success will happen because those responsible for leading these teams will make more good decisions than poor ones, which includes who they sign, how they play, and ensuring that team spirit is first rate. These are the qualities that contribute to whether you succeed or fail, not whether we have enough 'lucky' heather on the premises.

To get that many points and still go down means that many teams at the bottom end of the division were far stronger than usual. In fact, probably stronger than in any other season ever. That is something that our club has no control over. To have a bad season that coincides with that is in my view very unlucky. And to actually get relegated with a positive goal differenced is almost unbelievable. Has it ever happened before or since?

 

[itsinyerblood]

And my word he was good.

The quotation is also ascribed to the equally great Arnold Palmer but, knowing quite a bit about the pair of them, it's more likely to have been the Sarth Effrikan.

Yep, I guess you can apply the benefits of continued practice to any recognised great sport's person, be it Bjorn Borg, Pele, Roger Federer, Johan Cruyff, or Sugar Ray Leonard. There are a few individual's who, for a while, rely solely on their talent, but there's an inevitable burn out for these people, and they can't sustain their careers on talent alone, George Best and Maradona being good examples. Of course they hit heights, but with more dedication and practice who knows how much longer they might have continued for?

 

[itsinyerblood]

To get that many points and still go down means that many teams at the bottom end of the division were far stronger than usual. In fact, probably stronger than in any other season ever. That is something that our club has no control over. To have a bad season that coincides with that is in my view very unlucky. And to actually get relegated with a positive goal differenced is almost unbelievable. Has it ever happened before or since?

If I'd been next to you at that moment I'd probably have joined you, head in hands, tears streaming, as I accused bad luck of treating us so appallingly. The thing is, as unique as that situation was, it happened for a reason, not because it was ordained by the god of good or bad luck.

 

[oldblade]

If I'd been next to you at that moment I'd probably have joined you, head in hands, tears streaming, as I accused bad luck of treating us so appallingly. The thing is, as unique as that situation was, it happened for a reason, not because it was ordained by the god of good or bad luck.

I think there is an element of luck involved if your side's decline reaches it's lowest ebb in the same season as the teams around you are performing more strongly than in other seasons prior or since.

1967-8 was not unlucky. 1975-6 was not unlucky. 1978-9 was not unlucky. 1980-1 WAS unlucky. True, we weren't good and it was down to our own deficiencies that we were in that area of the table, but in any other season we would have stayed up and probably stayed up with a game or two to spare.

.

 

[Darren]

When people talk about luck, I am often reminded of what George Orwell wrote about when he was being treated after being shot in the neck whilst fighting in the Spanish Civil War. The doctor told him that to be shot in the neck and still be alive was very lucky. Orwell wrote that he couldn't help thinking that it would be even luckier not to have been shot at all.

 

[boo radley]

Fuck the league, win the cup.
Yes I know the question but I will stick with my stance of a couple of months ago. I would take being relegated and winning the cup.

 

[jezzablade]

Pinchers, I've been reading both your's and Nuddy's thoughts on this thing called luck.

To me, luck is no different to when someone buys 'lucky' heather or clothes pegs as a way of fending off dark spirits. There is no such thing as luck. There may be those who were fortunate, but the idea of luck seems to have it's roots in some type of primordial swamp. We sport's fans love the idea of luck, good or bad, as it helps explain something that has a more mundane explanation, much as you've already touched upon. A close call would better explain a near miss, but this reliance on luck is about as stupid a belief as I can think of.

United have not had bad luck that's contributed to where it currently finds itself. Mismanagement, an inability to learn from past mistakes, poor leadership from various chairmen, overall we've got it wrong. What's happened since Clough was appointed is that we've seen a gradual shift away from what we've become used to. At long last we have a manager who makes me believe that this club might be able to do something right for a change. Nothing to do with luck I might add, just a good appointment with a manager who seems a good fit for this club.

So the next time someone misses an open goal, mistimes a tackle, has a shot deflected, or does anything that you'd normally attribute to 'luck', just remind yourself that these things happen for reasons other than the intervention of mysterious, magical forces. Otherwise we'll always be ruled by this type of pointless mind-magic, and poor judgement will be fobbed off as 'bad luck'.

Luck was not used in the mystical sense of divine spiritual or any other unworldly reason. It was used as a pure analogy of a situation. Preston very narrowly missed two crystal chances and hit the post. Anyone who has kicked a football hard towards a goal will know that sometimes they go in sometimes they hit the post sometimes they go wide. This is not for a reason due to poor play its because of the design of footballs and the small inaccuracies of a footballers leg when kicking it. Footballs are not snooker balls they move in the air, footballers don't take twenty backstrokes before hitting it they hit it towards the part of the goal the goalie has the most difficulty getting to it (the side). The luck part therefore is chance (the same as betting) as to whether it will go in or not. The same applies to glancing headers (probably more so in terms of accuracy). Therefore we were fortunate that none of the three excellent chances that Preston had did not go in, they were not due to excellent defending. However I'm pleased as punch that we were fortunate and got the clean sheet. We have not been fortunate for a long time both on and off the field and that includes the 10 game winning run which was done the hard way. Doyle's handball can be argued away I agree and was probably the reason why Harry's penalty wasn't given.

 

[Northyorksblade]

Hopefully too, Brayford will be in the team at Wembley. Cup for me

 

[hykeham_blade]

Play offs and win, the quicker we get out of this division the better.

I voted the same as you but having thought about it I fear that perhaps promotion would be too soon for us this season. NC has only just started his rebuilding of the club and we know what has happened in the past when we have tried to run before we can walk.

 

[Small Mendonca]

I voted the same as you but having thought about it I fear that perhaps promotion would be too soon for us this season. NC has only just started his rebuilding of the club and we know what has happened in the past when we have tried to run before we can walk.

Suppose so, I just hate having to play teams like Oldham and Carlisle every week.

 

[Bath Blade]

And to actually get relegated with a positive goal differenced is almost unbelievable. Has it ever happened before or since?

Manchester City in 1937/38 was I think the only other time (from The Knowledge page on the Guardian website rather than my own knowledge).

 

[blade too long]

just a wembley fa cup final , but no win is no better than losing a play off final, so winning at wembley and going up by some margin, but why should it be a choice , lets be greedy

 

[Silent Blade]

Manchester City in 1937/38 was I think the only other time (from The Knowledge page on the Guardian website rather than my own knowledge).

Yes, they had won the league in the previous season. Cant think of anyone else who got relegated the season after they won the league. Ipswich were the closest to this as they won the league in 1962 and got relegated in 1964