Sarge wrote:The only "thing" that I worry most based on the whole winning-but-playing-badly kind of situation is that
-Co-leaders by Christmas, 4th place by April-
for reasons:
1. We do not have quality squad depth
2. We do not have enough quality players
But then again it's the mother luck. If we could win the Champions league with the likes of traore, biscan, josemi, cisse, etc.. then WHY NOT?
I like the way you expressed the first point, just because we're "joint top" doesn't mean we're going to stay there.
Not so sure about the second point. Winning a cup competition, even with group stages and over two legs most of the rest of the way, is completely different to the league. In the Champions League you have to be better than each opponent over two legs, in the league you have to better the results of every other team. We can only affect Chelsea's results in two games a season, same for the mancs and Arsenal. That's why Chelsea won the Premiership twice and we won the Champions League once, reached another final and had the better of Chelsea in that competition until last season.
Premiership : 38 games x 90 mins = 3,420 mins of football, plus stoppage time
Champions League : 15 games x 90 mins = 1,350 mins football plus stoppage time plus five lots of 30 mins possible extra time
Champions League needs to lose the group stages in my opinion, playing six matches to reduce four teams to two when a two legged tie does it in two games. Most of the time it's the two sides you expect to go through who do.