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Nope, serious. Have a lot of respect for the likes of yourself and Froggy who can seem to rise above the common baiting and goading in foreign territory here. Keep it coming, saves me trawling other fan boards to find other perspectives

I wasn't asking if the trophy win meant something/anything though, of course it does. I was asking for your take on the "would you take 17th and a cup win?" contemplation... ... which you've answered here. From your point of view, the ends justified the means and you could care less about the league. Fair enough. The matter about the prestige of the Europa League is a separate discussion. I won't knock Spurs' achievement from the point of view of Ange et al identifying the EL as their principle objective and succeeding; but I will knock it from the point of view of it being less of an achievement in a European context. To answer your question: when I was talking about the structural changes, I meant the wholesale shake-up of UEFA competitions to appease the ESL clubs (including Spurs), of which no CL dropouts is just one constituent part. Where previously the EL was Champions League B, I'd argue it's now moreso Conference League A.

Alive and well it seems. Shame.

Not sure if serious Been protecting those scars (see above) and not posting too much about football - as a result when I pop the cork you get verbal diarrhoea. Also there is an absolute ton of shit going on in life and this is a welcome safety valve. And other mixed metaphors.

Cheers! Hard to say what the season feels like now tbh. That needs a bit more distance. I feel like this is more of a question about long-term v short term football goals but I’ve got a couple of thoughts so apologies for the dribbling essay about to follow. I feel weird because I’ve been keeping a bit of emotional distance from Spurs despite moving back to North London. Danny Kelly said something in his post-game podcast about the scars you accumulate as a fan and how you protect them. Some of mine are about the game in general, some are about the weird stresses inherent in the way we play, some are about the insidious and traumatic nature about being a dyed-in-the-wool fan (of any team) that is viscerally affected by the game despite recognizing its absurdity . My next-door neighbor is a season-ticket holder. He texted me after work to see if I wanted to go down the pub with him to watch it. My response - verbatim, just checked - was “thank you but I am absolutely terrified”. He said simply “me too”. Of course, I did have other stuff to do (like moving a piano) but I watched the last trophy we won in a pub in Sutton Coldfield and the one before in a pub in Stratford (the East London one). Now I’m old and fragile and tired, and I have to try to seem like a normal person around my kids and my wife. It’s easier to hold things together trying to distract myself from the TV with chores that I’m inventing out of thin air. Is football really trophies over everything? Most local opposition fans - Arsenal, Chelsea, even the odd West Ham fan - have been telling me that for a while. They’ll move those goalposts now - actually some already have done. For me it was always community and family over everything, but really community and family and trophies and good football and progress in a sort of mulch. More satisfying to be good in the league though? - well if you’re old enough, you tell me how satisfied you were with the Keegan years. I’m going to guess broadly incredibly happy and proud but with this weird underlying sense of ultimate unfulfillment. I fucking loved us under Poch for a million reasons, but can‘t deny that the fact he didn’t get to lift a trophy gnaws on me sometimes. I got a call from my eldest today (15F). She was ecstatic because her school day tomorrow is cancelled…because of Spurs’ trophy parade down the High Rd. There you go - community and family and trophies . My Mum’s in North Middlesex Hospital at the moment and she’ll probably be able to hear the parade (she won’t know what the fuck it is, but if she hears Ange’s voice she might think it’s her Dad). That’s part of why it can be more satisfying than an extremely good league campaign. I’ll always want us to get better every year and ultimately win everything all the time and force Arsenal back to South London etc etc. It’s almost self-evident that a good league performance this year would have suggested we were on the right track for progress to world domination, and a Cup win - while promoting self-belief and togetherness - doesn’t necessarily do that at all, certainly not when combined with the shambles in the PL. But I’m happy. There are signs for optimism in the squad, some players have got a long overdue reward, we have got access to the CL gravy train even though we are likely to spill it all down our fronts. And the memes will be fucking glorious for a few months.

Re: cup wins, to be fair I've been pretty consistent on this in the past, in relation to ourselves. It would've been vile if we'd spawned our way to a league cup win under Bruce by having teams of reserves literally roll over for us to reduce their own fixture schedules. I think basically the value that comes in winning a competition comes from the difficulty of the struggle and the desire of fellow competitors. I'm sure the European teams you faced were mostly giving it their best, which is what made it sad. Thinking about it, this music video does a pithier job of summing up my thoughts on the situation: It's not Tottenham's fault (well, actually maybe it is in terms of playing a part in trying to lock up global football's finances within a small clutch of mostly English clubs), but the old Uefa Cup and much of European football has become, in relative terms, a bedraggled thing. I think that's a tragedy, but it was a pretty inevitable consequence of things like moves towards Super Leagues. The Premier League itself has been pretty appalling this season, given the apparent sense that many teams just aren't turning up to try if it's not in their interests, especially in end season matches. It's really poisonous for the competition and, in my eyes, it's prestige.

Was trying to get my head around that, I even went back to check if I clicked the wrong thread. Can we keep this shite to the Man U thread 😉

If that doesn't scream 'serious journalist' I don't know what does

Wonder if that is what inspired Bruno to do the flag celebration?

Open thread on a NUFC forum about realistic transfers, see argument ensuing about how much a MUFC player earns. 🤷‍♂️ As if a whole thread dedicated to them wasn’t enough.

Mid to late next week.

With matches being played simultaneously and with a goal potentially being scored at any time I’d hate to go into the 90th minute with both games poised at 1-1. We need to put these Scouse twats to bed in the first half.

When you think of Champions League being League Champions then it seems ridiculous to allow Spurs in, but it's not, it's a League OF Champions and they are Champions of Europe by merit, so have every right to be there too tbf.

Really appreciate the insight and time taken with your posts, @leffe186

I don’t have a problem with it. UEFA structure their competitions as three levels and it makes sense that if you win one you move up to the next. Everyone knew the prize in September and Spurs won it, fair fucks.

Also, despite the Amorim headlines, the super miserable (ie. mancunian) guy on that podcast does say that Amorim spoke "fantastically well".

Listening to the podcast though... sweet Jebus that Schadenfreude hits the spot.

It would be funny if Amad scores against Villa to put us in the CL.

That’s pretty good when not watching us, agree with you there.

Would definitely take Mainoo for a sensible fee. Doesn’t get into the starting three at the moment, but has physical attributes Eddie would love, so a year or so of being re-taught how to play football, and he’d be grand. Hard no to Fernandes. Think Diallo’s price would reflect the fact he’s somewhat overrated, but considering the absolute fume it would cause on Wearside, it could possibly be worth the overpay.

Fair enough. I do think there actually were a couple of good teams in the Europa but yeah the financial gulf between every single PL team and most of the rest of Europe has expanded enormously and the format of all the European trophies exacerbates the issue. I just don’t think it’s unreasonable to give one single CL place to the winners of the Europa Cup. It’s an achievement. Less of an achievement for us than it would have been for - say - Bodø/Glimt but I’m perfectly happy for whoever wins it to get in.

Save us lot some copium for Sunday 🙏

Those emojis

We're Newcastle fans. For the last 55 years or so Schadenfreude is all we've had.