Normally, yes. But this is not a normal season for Forest, who should be nowhere near where they currently are. There's an extremely rare and totally unexpected opportunity to qualify for the Champions League, meaning it's now about whether Forest can hang on for fifth place or better. It really doesn't matter whether it's third, fourth or fifth in that regard, as winning the league or finishing runners-up is out of the question.
Jim's right on this one.
Yes of course I do.
....Why?
I think in terms of measurement, there's winning it. Not going to do that. Or qualifying for the champions league. Anywhere in that is fine.
If the choice was third, or fifth and the FA Cup (and it isn't, false jeopardy and all that). I'd take the cup, every day. [Selfish perspective alert] It's the only worthwhile thing I haven't seen forest win.
The idea of every game of football is to win it. The idea of every possession is to score. Cup games included.
You're using a wrong spade to dig a hole of utter wrongness to bury your wrong opinion.
The objective of the Premier League is to get into the Champions League. If you can't win it, everything else is hasn't won it.
Get the champions league money and win the Premier in 2 years.
Currently it’s 7 clubs for 5 Champions League* spots. The sooner that gets whittled down to 5 the better. (Realistically it’s 5 clubs for 3 spots)
Why would you jeopardise a top 5 place to try and finish 3rd? If Villa qualify, it’s much more likely to be at our expense than City’s.
*which we now have to call “Europe’s top table”
If we beat Brentford, Villa are hanging by a thread, and most likely Chelsea are not going to make it. You'd have to fancy shitty and barcode human rights abusers to finish ahead of us.
I won't cry if we only finish fifth. I shall be delighted.
Agreed. I said the other day that if you offered me the Cup but we miss out on CL I'd take it without a second thought, but league position matters. I think it's a big financial impact as well.
Not sure if tricky is messing with his punctuation again but I read it as (3rd) or (5th + FA Cup). Not FA Cup or CL spot. I may be wrong.
I’m sure our medium term future in terms of retaining and attracting players is better served by CL qualification but we should attract decent players after this season, regardless of where we finish.
In terms of money, last year the difference between 3rd and 5th was about £7m. But the difference in money received for participating in the CL vs Europa is high (€18M vs €5M) plus differences for winning or drawing games which quickly offsets the risk/reward of league placing
Motion seconded. Except for the 'series' bit.
Revealing para in Athletic story about Derby.
Roy McFarland is 77, a Derby County legend — one of the club’s greatest players with over 500 appearances, its former manager and, more recently, a director. In 1975 he was a 27-year-old returning from injury sustained playing for England. He was operated on by a man called Doctor Trickey.
Christ! The thought of our Tricky advancing on a patient in scrubs with a scalpel in his hand is, frankly, terrifying.
I agree it was a good piece. Easy to forget just how much cross-pollination there was between the Shaggers & Forest in those days; Hinton, Wignal, Hennessey, Todd, O’Hare, Gemmill & McGovern all played for both (& Storey-Moore came very close), & Mackay & (obvs) Clough & Taylor managed both… all in a pretty short time
Palace score and Sels stays 1 or 2 ahead on the clean sheets with four games left.
And we're currently 7 points behind with a game in hand in the race for second.
What?
Mateta's equalising goal last night for Palace at Arsenal was special.
www.skysports.com/football/video/11095/13354573/arsenal-2-2-crystal-palace-premier-league-highlights
