Europa League

[CosbehFox]

Be good if we qualified judging from this thread cos it be ****ing easy to get one of the 650 tickets to Yerevan away 

[yks]

I want us to qualify for European competitions, but regularly and when we'll be structurally ready to do it without impacting the PL results and I don't know if we will be next season.

[David Hankey]

On 07/01/2019 at 17:14, somebum said:

No good getting into Europe if you can't even beat Newport 

I thought Newport was in Europe?!!

[Harry - LCFC]

11 minutes ago, yks said:

I want us to qualify for European competitions, but regularly and when we'll be structurally ready to do it without impacting the PL results and I don't know if we will be next season.

While you may not intend it, I think the real-world implication of what you're saying is that you're unlikely to ever see us as 'ready' to compete in Europe.

 

The club is already in a historically strong position. The ideal situation you describe is unlikely ever to come (well, it did once, an even then our CL campaign coincided with an initially poor league performance).

 

If we want to play in Europe that will require us to accept a certain cost domestically. I recognise this trade-off and gladly accept it.

[Voll Blau]

On 08/01/2019 at 01:15, Dan LCFC said:

I don't think we'll qualify for it because we're not good enough, is my riveting hot take from this one.

 

But if we do, I want it absolutely taking seriously.

 

I am absolutely, utterly flabbergasted that any matchgoing fan could not want us to qualify for the Europa League. I question what you honestly want this club to aspire to, and what you're actually getting out of following Leicester if you actively don't want us to be in it.

 

These things about teams struggling because of Europe - there's a degree of it for sure, but it's very much a Premier League propaganda narrative, just like the shunning of nearly every other competition in the footballing calendar, they're being promoted as hindrances to this promised land of midtable Premier League football where ultimately, the only proper beneficiaries aren't actually the fans. Fans themselves should not be towing this line.

 

I don't expect us to go into it and win it if we do qualify, but if we don't take it seriously, in the quest of... you guessed it, qualifying for the Europa League, then I think I'd frankly start to lose interest in even bothering with it anymore.

 

I also stress that if we do get there and end up in the qualifying rounds, that we've got another thing coming if we think we can arrogantly waltz our way to the group stages just like we think we can waltz past these lower league sides (and sometimes don't). It needs to be taken seriously, cherished, and we really can create some special memories. Hull went out to Lokeren, Southampton went out to Hapoel Be'er-Sheva, West Ham suffered consecutive losses to Astra Giurgiu. It could happen to us if we weren't careful.

Absolutely spot on. The idea that we as a fanbase can simply dismiss any opportunity we have to enjoy Europe makes me sick. Why the hell do these people follow our club?

[Guest bss9401]

Southampton took 7000 to the San Siro during their Europa League campaign and could have had even more tickets. I didn't get near away tickets for our Champions League season so would welcome the opportunity of actually making a game. Aim high this season and get us back into Europe!

[fleckneymike]

50 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

Absolutely spot on. The idea that we as a fanbase can simply dismiss any opportunity we have to enjoy Europe makes me sick. Why the hell do these people follow our club?

I think the real issue is we all do want to see us secure European qualification it’s just most of us thought it worthwhile trying to secure a route into Europe via every competition rather than sacking off the two cups. 

[leicesterseddon]

Tbh if we're not taking either of the cups seriously and don't even want to qualify for the Europa League, you have to ask: what's the point of even being a professional club? 

[volpeazzurro]

1 hour ago, Harry - LCFC said:

While you may not intend it, I think the real-world implication of what you're saying is that you're unlikely to ever see us as 'ready' to compete in Europe.

 

The club is already in a historically strong position. The ideal situation you describe is unlikely ever to come (well, it did once, an even then our CL campaign coincided with an initially poor league performance).

 

If we want to play in Europe that will require us to accept a certain cost domestically. I recognise this trade-off and gladly accept it.

But only if that cost doesn't include a real risk of relegation like the Burnley situation. Squad wise we are very weak at the moment and are at times barely able to muster a really good first team ie if Vardy is missing we appear knackered. Personally I take a half way house look at it.  This year I feel qualification could be damaging. Next season, when we have hopefully made at least 2 or 3 signings, I think we'd be in a position to compete because as you rightly say, you can't wait forever in the hope of the perfect squad. Also, if we did qualify next year, we'd have had yet another transfer window to consolidate.  The problem is always going to be identifying and managing to get those appropriate players this summer. You'd like to think that they have already got some targets and who knows,  maybe some tacit agreements have already been made? I do think that there's a real push to get rid of some at all costs and a feeling that there won't be any 'stop gap' purchases in January. I can't say I blame them if they're hoping for a big push to make some similarly decent properly targeted buys like last summer. 

 

As an aside, I have just had to ring Sky and the bloke on the other end was an avid Celtic fan who couldn't state enough how good Benkovic is. He said he was far and above the best player in their team and made the rest look like schoolboys. Apparently their then chief scout 2 years ago wanted to buy him for 3m but the club wouldn't stump up for an unproven player. That same scout, John Parke had been responsible for bringing in Wanyama, Van Dyke and others. Brendon Rogers replaced him with his own man and has been poor. 

[Voll Blau]

2 hours ago, fleckneymike said:

I think the real issue is we all do want to see us secure European qualification it’s just most of us thought it worthwhile trying to secure a route into Europe via every competition rather than sacking off the two cups. 

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. But I've seen enough evidence in recent months of our fans disparaging the Europa League to realise there's a certain proportion who wholesale would rather we didn't enter it at all via whatever route.

[AKCJ]

Up until about half an hour ago I wasn't too bothered about Europa league but i've just seen who was in the group stages last year and just about every club went to at least 2 great European cities.

 

Sign me up.

[Babylon]

32 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. But I've seen enough evidence in recent months of our fans disparaging the Europa League to realise there's a certain proportion who wholesale would rather we didn't enter it at all via whatever route.

I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't want us in it, I'd just caution people to not expect it to be taken too seriously when you might play 19 games to win it.

 

It's one of those things that gets easier to compete the bigger you get as a club. Bigger the club, the more money you have, the better reserves you have, the easier it is to field teams that can compete on multiple fronts.

 

We're doing the club growing now, I still think once we're the other side of this period of growth, we'll see the clubs targets and priorities change.

[jayfox26]

On 07/01/2019 at 18:14, mucfox said:

CP did not want to play in the League Cup - no Vardy and others

CP did not want to play in the FA Cup - no Vardy and others

CP certainly does not want to play Europa League - too long and exhausting journeys

 

What does CP want anyway?

For fans to stop moaning about every thing he does? Just a thought....

[leicesterseddon]

2 hours ago, Voll Blau said:

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. But I've seen enough evidence in recent months of our fans disparaging the Europa League to realise there's a certain proportion who wholesale would rather we didn't enter it at all via whatever route.

 

I know what you mean, but I suppose they don't have to go...

 

For what it's worth I will admit that the early stages are likely to be a bit crap, but if we got through to the group stage there would be some good games as well. 

 

I mean look at some of the clubs in the group stage this year: AC Milan, Lazio, Marseille, Sevilla, Sporting Lisbon...

 

I think we'd all admit we can hardly turn our noses up at clubs like those, surely! 

[RutlanderFox]

I think that if we hadn’t had a Champions League campaign, and a memorable one too, then people wouldn’t be turning their noses up at this. It’s still European football, something our club could only dream of getting for many years of our history. I don’t think our league form or position will suffer dramatically if we can bolster the squad with numbers and quality. I for one hope we get there, take it seriously and create memories to last a lifetime whilst taking another step towards being the club Vichai wanted to be 

[Leeds Fox]

10 hours ago, volpeazzurro said:

But only if that cost doesn't include a real risk of relegation like the Burnley situation. Squad wise we are very weak at the moment and are at times barely able to muster a really good first team ie if Vardy is missing we appear knackered. Personally I take a half way house look at it.  This year I feel qualification could be damaging. Next season, when we have hopefully made at least 2 or 3 signings, I think we'd be in a position to compete because as you rightly say, you can't wait forever in the hope of the perfect squad. Also, if we did qualify next year, we'd have had yet another transfer window to consolidate.  The problem is always going to be identifying and managing to get those appropriate players this summer. You'd like to think that they have already got some targets and who knows,  maybe some tacit agreements have already been made? I do think that there's a real push to get rid of some at all costs and a feeling that there won't be any 'stop gap' purchases in January. I can't say I blame them if they're hoping for a big push to make some similarly decent properly targeted buys like last summer. 

 

As an aside, I have just had to ring Sky and the bloke on the other end was an avid Celtic fan who couldn't state enough how good Benkovic is. He said he was far and above the best player in their team and made the rest look like schoolboys. Apparently their then chief scout 2 years ago wanted to buy him for 3m but the club wouldn't stump up for an unproven player. That same scout, John Parke had been responsible for bringing in Wanyama, Van Dyke and others. Brendon Rogers replaced him with his own man and has been poor. 

 

I understand your concerns but what are we really aiming for if we aren’t aiming for Europe? Are we aiming to be the best of the rest but not qualify for Europe? 

 

I’m sure Top would like King Power to be branded around Europe again, even if it isn’t at the highest level. We need to strengthen in the summer regardless. 

 

It would give us some obscure but possibly some great away trips.