Domestic English Cups 2023-2024: Page 15 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Domestic English Cups 2023-2024

invisibleman18

Qwiss Absolutely. I don't see why we can't win an FA Cup aswell as challenge in the league. I've never really understood the idea that the cups are supposed to be beneath us.

RowJimmy

It's not that cups don't matter.
The question is, would you rather have an 89 point season with 28 wins, +62 GD, but no cup, or a 60 point season with 18 wins and -1 GD (i mean, holy shit, negative GD) but the FA cup.
I'd much rather have our season. I really don't know what to say to someone who thinks otherwise.

Big Willie

RowJimmy It's not that cups don't matter.
The question is, would you rather have an 89 point season with 28 wins, +62 GD, but no cup, or a 60 point season with 18 wins and -1 GD (i mean, holy shit, negative GD) but the FA cup.
I'd much rather have our season. I really don't know what to say to someone who thinks otherwise.

Think it depends on how you frame the question. Whether it is judging the success of the season in isolation ignoring how it sets you up for future seasons, or judging the season on how strongly you complete it so that even if it ends up trophyless there is positivity for what you can achieve in the following years.

Objectively speaking Man United have had success this season by winning one of the three main competitions we want to win. City win the other. And a foreign team will win the last one. Fuck the League Cup because aside from City, no one really gives a shit about it.

That said I wouldn't want to swap positions with them because we are primed for the next few years to do really well whereas they are pretty much fucked all over the pitch and in the changing rooms.

Let them have their success this week, whilst it may mean bragging rights for them because they actually won something, I'd rather be in our position for what it means going forwards.

MistaT

RowJimmy — if I’m looking forward to next season then yes I want the stellar campaign we just had.

But in ten years I’m doubtful I’ll look back at last season with fondness unless we build on it with a trophy. Truthfully, I found the season less enjoyable than the prior season despite us being closer to a title.

Asterix

The FA Cup is our Cup. It just is. We should win it every year. I love it.

Qwiss

The FA cup matters. The league cup doesn't. Thats how I feel about it. You do need to rotate in the cups though, even the FA cup. If anything I'd like Arteta to take the league cup less seriously going forward. We've just had bad draws in the FA cup the last 2 years.

awooga83

As I said before I understand the perspective of feeling good about our season over a trophy even if I disagree on the individual season success. But our position is predicated on the hope we will win one of the big trophies in the next 2-3 seasons. If that doesn't pan out then this season doesn't mean a whole lot in the bigger scheme of things and certainly not more then getting a trophy in the history books.

Qwiss

awooga83 agree with that but at the same time no one was calling 2014-2017 a success because we won the cup 3 times. The reality is you need both to really declare yourselves successful.

awooga83

Qwiss yeah agree, FA Cup doesn't mean you are in a position to compete at the highest level but equally if you don't manage to get over the line in that period where you have that uptick in quality it'll not mean as much either. We Weren't a great team at the moment of those cups but we won enough to put us as the highest all time winner which is something I do like as a stat.

Coombs

I'm sure the same people who said that the FA cup wins papered over the cracks are now the ones saying that trophies are all that matter.

flobaba

Coombs they did,

And they are.

The club (manager) sets his priorities, the players follow. Arteta has to do a better job communicating with urgency the value of the FA Cup. Translate the same intensity he would for a champions league (level ) game to players for the FA Cup. He’s done it before, when it was our only hope, so he can do it. He can’t get overly consumed by the league/champions league that the FA cup becomes an afterthought or backup plan.

Mirth

We've literally been in their position 4 times in the past 10 years and not once was the mood going into the summer following the cup win as optimistic and positive as it has been over the past two seasons when we've challenged for the league.

Obviously winning the FA cup whilst challenging for the league is better than not winning the cup but that's self evident.

Qwiss

Mirth I will say I was stupidly optimistic after our last FA Cup win but was brought back down to earth with a massive thud once the season got going.

flobaba

Yes, we were able to win it when we were shit.

Now we are good. We should be winning it or at least reaching the finals even more regularly.

Mirth

Not sure anyone's disagreeing with that.

Burnwinter

MistaT Truthfully, I found the season less enjoyable than the prior season despite us being closer to a title.

The last few weeks when the title race was still on were absolutely enthralling for me, and left me with a good feeling about how closely we ran it. I dunno about you, but for me last season was deeply disappointing after April and it ended with a lot of dark questions and dissatisfaction.

Burnwinter

MistaT Truthfully, I found the season less enjoyable than the prior season despite us being closer to a title.

Clrnc

Yeah everyone thought the future is bright and we can only get better.

We did, 3 years later.

flobaba

Soon as we lost to Villa at home, I gave up hope. It was a bit disappointing, but I know the boys worked hard and gave it a good shake.

And that's all I ask - That they leave it all out there, every single game. They did that. I can't be mad.

Clrnc

flobaba Same. After Villa I didn't really hope any hopes. I just watched and there were more of hopes of a miracle than any expectations. Wasn't sad when we finished 2nd because I expected that.

I was upset last year when we exploded dramatically. Almost every stat last year pointed us to winning the title, but that last few matches really was unexpected. I could understand people saying we bottled it last year, this year we definitely didn't bottle anything.

USArsenal

Really, i cannot look past 16-1-1 in our last 18 matches. To me, that is the definition of NOT bottlers. Almost no team wins every single game. We just happened to run into one of the only teams that could, and they went 17-1-0. One stumble from them in the last 18(!) games and we would have lifted the trophy. It was the front half of the season that really did us in. I don't think we will make that mistake again. We were trying to find the right team before Christmas, and something finally clicked and it showed in our record after that. Now that we have a good idea of what players fit where, i think we come out of the blocks flying next season. (leaving aside the possibility of injuries from the Euros/training/etc)

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