If my Nan had wheels, she’d have been a bike…

[Jakemoore]

I’ve had the week off work and so I’ve had some time to reflect. I also watched the brilliant Vardy doc on Netflix the other day and of course, social media content has been awash with 10-years since we won the PL and 5-years since we lifted the FA Cup. 
 

It all got me thinking….where would we be had we not won the FA Cup? What if that Chilwell goal had stood and we had gone on to lose? Do we think BR would have galvanised the squad to go and beat a complacent Chelsea side in the league on the Tuesday? And by doing so, handing us CL football. Of course, there was still one more game but Chelsea lost that one so beating them in the game after the cup final would have been enough.

 

Do we think the CL money would have saved us from relegation the first time? And would anyone swap the FA Cup to finish 5th in 2021 knowing that no CL money may effectively have led to our relegation in 2023 followed by the two in 2025 and 2026?

Edited 15 May by Jakemoore

[Fox92]

No I would not swap a major trophy for finishing 5th.

 

Trophies are added to the club's history.

 

We all wanted to win the FA Cup and we did it.

 

I was lucky enough to attend the FA Cup final. The only negative from that day is Wembley wasn't full. I just hope I see us make another FA Cup final and relive the day but to a greater extent. 

Edited 15 May by Fox92
Grammar

[AKCJ]

The obvious one is the Maddison penalty.

 

[dmayne7]

1 minute ago, Jakemoore said:

I’ve had the week off work and so I’ve had some time I reflect. I also watched the brilliant Vardy doc on Netflix the other day and of course, social media content has been awash with 10-years since we won the PL and 5-years since we lifted the FA Cup. 
 

It all got me thinking….where would we be had we not won the FA Cup? What if that Chilwell goal had stood and we had gone on to lose? Do we think BR would have galvanised the squad to go and beat a complacent Chelsea side in the league on the Tuesday? And by doing so, handing us CL football. Of course, there was still one more game but Chelsea lost that one so beating them in the game after the cup final would have been enough.

 

Do we think the CL money would have saved us from relegation the first time? And would anyone swap the FA Cup to finish 5th in 2021 knowing that no CL money may effectively have led to our relegation in 2023 followed by the two in 2025 and 2026?

We'd have been even more likely to lose that game and sink further, quicker.

 

As for the CL or FA Cup debate, impossible to answer in hindsight as it's hard to disassociate where we are now with the idea that it could be better in anyway. At the time I was always heart chooses the FA Cup, head chooses the CL. But it would only have made a difference if there had been changes at board level, they'd been quicker to sack Rodgers when he started to underperform, had a clearer vision on staff and player recruitment etc.

[Foxdiamond]

Just now, Jakemoore said:

I’ve had the week off work and so I’ve had some time I reflect. I also watched the brilliant Vardy doc on Netflix the other day and of course, social media content has been awash with 10-years since we won the PL and 5-years since we lifted the FA Cup. 
 

It all got me thinking….where would we be had we not won the FA Cup? What if that Chilwell goal had stood and we had gone on to lose? Do we think BR would have galvanised the squad to go and beat a complacent Chelsea side in the league on the Tuesday? And by doing so, handing us CL football. Of course, there was still one more game but Chelsea lost that one so beating them in the game after the cup final would have been enough.

 

Do we think the CL money would have saved us from relegation the first time? And would anyone swap the FA Cup to finish 5th in 2021 knowing that no CL money may effectively have led to our relegation in 2023 followed by the two in 2025 and 2026?

Naturally I would have loved us to win both the cup and qualify for CL. No way would I swap the cup win for anything. Whatever came after getting the monkey off our back to finally win the FA Cup was fantastic. Losing 4 finals was bad enough but 5 unthinkable if you are an older fan with knowledge of our history or history of the cup. 

[Foxdiamond]

4 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

No I would not swap a major trophy for finishing 5th.

 

Trophies are added to the club's history.

 

We all wanted to win the FA Cup and we did it.

 

I was lucky enough to attend the FA Cup final. The only thing I was was different was Wembley be full that day. I just hope I see us make another FA Cup final and relive the day but to a greater extent. 

Agree about covid attendance restriction but thankful it was not the year before when Wembley was completely without fans

[Finnegan]

I think knowing what we know now, we were always doomed when we signed Brendan Rodgers. 

 

He was probably the worst possible manager to come in to the club with only Top and Rudkin to supervise him and no operating model in place designed to curb his influence. 

 

His entire strategy is short term and self serving, he had no interest in developing the long term security of the club and building in the same way Pearson did. 

 

Vichai probably would have had the strength of will and the fiscal shrewdness to keep him in check but Top never appeared to have any spine with him until it was far too late. 

 

By the time the relegation season started the damage had already been done. 

 

I used to feel that waiting too long to sack him cost us a shot at someone like Emery, who wound up at equally floundering Villa not long afterwards and I felt that was a bit of a revolving doors moment. 

 

But I think in hindsight the squad had been allowed to get so poor, especially in the defence, and the wage bill over spend was so high and we were sprinting headlong in to points deductions and sanctions and this five year spiral of waiting for all their contracts to expire and I just think whatever happened we were ****ed. 

 

Maybe not THIS ****ed but still. 

 

[davieG]

I've waited 60 years to win the FA Cup never even thought about winning the League as I started watching when winning the FA Cup was probably seen as the cream of domestic trophies.

 

My only regret, I wasn't there to witness it.

[Guest Mickyblueeyes]

Nah - I'll keep the Fa Cup. It was the last bit of success associated with Vichai and his team. Top can pretend he played a part in that alongside the title win but like the title win, we won it regardless. 

 

I also think nothing could galvanise that squad - they were done by that stage. I think we just about beat a C-team United a week or so before. 

[Foxdiamond]

6 minutes ago, davieG said:

I've waited 60 years to win the FA Cup never even thought about winning the League as I started watching when winning the FA Cup was probably seen as the cream of domestic trophies.

 

My only regret, I wasn't there to witness it.

On the anniversary of winning the cup I think we can allow ourselves to put the current state of the club aside just to wallow in the memory of that goal and the win

[Foxdiamond]

3 minutes ago, Mickyblueeyes said:

Nah - I'll keep the Fa Cup. It was the last bit of success associated with Vichai and his team. Top can pretend he played a part in that alongside the title win but like the title win, we won it regardless. 

 

I also think nothing could galvanise that squad - they were done by that stage. I think we just about beat a C-team United a week or so before. 

We had a few players out with injury I seem to recall by that stage

[Mike Oxlong]

The result of us getting additional monies by virtue of CL qualification would have just resulted in us wasting more money on signing duds and giving players ridiculous contracts 

[BKLFox]

A what if I talked about with mates the other day was .. what if we hired Lennon instead of Ranieri which was quite a strong possibility at the time would we have done the 5000/1

 

I’d suggest not even if we had the same tactics just because of their personalities, Ranieri kept everything grounded and calm can only imagine what Lennon would have been like 😂 

[PhillippaT]

The only trophy I'd even think about swapping for Champions League footy is a League Cup, but even then it's still a *maybe*.

[Les-TA-Jon]

I wouldn't swap the FA cup win for finishing 4th or whatever. 

 

I do think though that had we not won the FA cup, Rodgers would have had less 'false credit' in the bank, and come the debacle of 2023, the club might have sacked him earlier and we could have stayed up. Which obviously changes the last 3 years or so. 

 

But Topkin have presided over such a disaster that we probably would have gone down in 2024 or whatever and had a similar, albeit less sharp, decline. 

[Gamble92]

We'd all be more gutted if we'd missed out on an FA Cup because of a last minute Chilwell goal but got in the Champions League.

 

In reality there were no excuses for not doing both. Rodgers successfully spun it like he does everything though. We were little Leicester with no history when it suited his narrative. 

[Spudulike]

37 minutes ago, davieG said:

I've waited 60 years to win the FA Cup never even thought about winning the League as I started watching when winning the FA Cup was probably seen as the cream of domestic trophies.

 

My only regret, I wasn't there to witness it.

Same for me. Went to every game of the '74 run and never recovered after that night at Villa Park. Not quite as bad in '82 but accepted that we would never win it.

 

Wasn't able to go to Wembley in '21 due to the covid risk. My Dad (massive City fan) died from it the January before and I didn't want to join him. Watched it on TV with my lad and the Tieleman's winner will live forever. Never swap that for a UCL qualification.

[South Shire Fox]

1 hour ago, AKCJ said:

The obvious one is the Maddison penalty.

 

Biggest myth in history. Everton absolutley battered us that night and we had Daniel Iversen having a worldie keeping us in it. Even if we went 2 goals up they would still have found a way to get a result with our record of bottling it. Was destiny we went down that year

Edited 15 May by South Shire Fox

[Dan]

I don't think our slide would've been quite as stark because Rodgers would've had less credit in the bank in the 2022/23 farce. But then maybe I'm wrong, because Aiyawatt and Rudkin seemed to be extremely blinded by him, and how useless they've been since Rodgers left tells me they knew they were a level below him.

 

We should never want to trade it. I dislike the majority of those involved in it, which is sad, but these things last forever. I saw an argument the other day that a Tottenham fan would actually take relegation to stop Arsenal winning the league, which seems mad, but they made the case that Arsenal's title is in the record books forever. Being relegated is something that can be rectified in 12 months.

 

Trophies should be prioritised. If they aren't then the entire thing is bogus as far as I'm concerned. Prioritising qualifying for a competition you probably won't win is a plague on the game, but it's financially motivated and many in the game now are of this persuasion.

[Dan]

I'd also add to the above, I think missing out on the Champions League wouldn't have saved us from a drop off. I think it would've probably delayed it somewhat, but we have inept people at the top - that's the only thing that matters. If we'd gotten Champions League money, we would simply have wasted more money.

[AKCJ]

25 minutes ago, South Shire Fox said:

Biggest myth in history. Everton absolutley battered us that night and we had Daniel Iversen having a worldie keeping us in it. Even if we went 2 goals up they would still have found a way to get a result with our record of bottling it. Was destiny we went down that year

Couldn't disagree more! Going in at half time 3-1 up would have knocked the stuffing out of Everton. The ground was buzzing when we went 2-1 up. It would have released massive pressure and I'm sure that we'd have won that game.

 

The save gave them impetus and they came out for the second half like a different team. The whole game swung on that moment.

 

With how things transpired after. We'd have gone into the last game of the season knowing we only needed a point to stay up. 

[Dan]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

I think knowing what we know now, we were always doomed when we signed Brendan Rodgers. 

 

He was probably the worst possible manager to come in to the club with only Top and Rudkin to supervise him and no operating model in place designed to curb his influence. 

 

His entire strategy is short term and self serving, he had no interest in developing the long term security of the club and building in the same way Pearson did. 

 

Vichai probably would have had the strength of will and the fiscal shrewdness to keep him in check but Top never appeared to have any spine with him until it was far too late. 

 

By the time the relegation season started the damage had already been done. 

 

I used to feel that waiting too long to sack him cost us a shot at someone like Emery, who wound up at equally floundering Villa not long afterwards and I felt that was a bit of a revolving doors moment. 

 

But I think in hindsight the squad had been allowed to get so poor, especially in the defence, and the wage bill over spend was so high and we were sprinting headlong in to points deductions and sanctions and this five year spiral of waiting for all their contracts to expire and I just think whatever happened we were ****ed. 

 

Maybe not THIS ****ed but still. 

 

I agree with all of this. Which probably frames this question better - should we have made this appointment, given he did win us the FA Cup?

 

I find it extraordinary that it can even be a question, but it is very much a debate in hindsight I think.

[Blue ROI]

Champions league would only have delayed the inevitable 

 

Nepo baby is non league level.

[Fox92]

Just now, Dan said:

I'd also add to the above, I think missing out on the Champions League wouldn't have saved us from a drop off. I think it would've probably delayed it somewhat, but we have inept people at the top - that's the only thing that matters. If we'd gotten Champions League money, we would simply have wasted more money.

Exactly my thoughts and I was going to post the same thing.

 

We have spent lots of money on rubbish players who have contributed nothing to the club - Daka, Vestergaard, Ayew, Skipp, Faes, etc - aside from big transfer fees and big wages. There would have been more players like this had we got more money.

[CornwallFox]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

I think knowing what we know now, we were always doomed when we signed Brendan Rodgers. 

 

He was probably the worst possible manager to come in to the club with only Top and Rudkin to supervise him and no operating model in place designed to curb his influence. 

 

His entire strategy is short term and self serving, he had no interest in developing the long term security of the club and building in the same way Pearson did. 

 

Vichai probably would have had the strength of will and the fiscal shrewdness to keep him in check but Top never appeared to have any spine with him until it was far too late. 

 

By the time the relegation season started the damage had already been done. 

 

I used to feel that waiting too long to sack him cost us a shot at someone like Emery, who wound up at equally floundering Villa not long afterwards and I felt that was a bit of a revolving doors moment. 

 

But I think in hindsight the squad had been allowed to get so poor, especially in the defence, and the wage bill over spend was so high and we were sprinting headlong in to points deductions and sanctions and this five year spiral of waiting for all their contracts to expire and I just think whatever happened we were ****ed. 

 

Maybe not THIS ****ed but still. 

 

I think this is nonsense. 

Rodgers did a fantastic job for 2/3 years, then when he wasn't allowed to refresh the squad he threw his toys out the pram which ended in disaster. 

But I'm not a fan of pretending he didn't do a phenomenal job for a couple of years.