leffe186

You’re rewarding the team that won the Europa League. You may as well say that when West Ham won the FA Cup in 1980 you can’t reward a Second Division team with a place in Europe, or when Wigan won it and got relegated “you can’t reward them etc”. That’s what it’s a reward for. Where they finished in the league is irrelevant. I quite liked that the winner of the Europa got into the CL tbh, well before we did it. I prefer it to the top four/five teams in the top four/five leagues. Again, that’s the root cause of the problem,

The problem is the expansion of the Champions League. The safety net was allowing people who failed in the CL another chance in the Europa. Taking that away actually makes sense, but without reducing the intake to the CL it runs the risk of what happened this year. Did we earn less money from winning the Europa than you did when getting knocked out of the CL?

Been at work and working backwards 80 taketh away, and 80 giveth. The “Champions League” thing is a good point - the root cause of most of this disdain towards last night was the conversion of the European Cup/Champions’ League to the Champions and a load of other guys. The people who should be in the Europa League are in the Champions League, and the other one (the Conference?) should allow clubs from “poorer” leagues a chance to compete for silverware. It doesn’t, and so obviously a league that is incredibly rich but that also - to its credit - has spread those riches around will dominate. The first part? I dunno lads. It’s bonkers to me as a fiftysomething fan that fans of a club that went my entire life on this planet until a couple of weeks ago without winning a trophy are so dismissive. I’m lucky enough to have seen us win a few trophies, but there are many many Spurs fans who have not, and who saw a terrific team and arguably the best Spurs player of the last 50 years somehow fail to win anything at all. I’ll talk about what the win means in practical terms to Spurs (maybe not a lot) elsewhere, but these somewhat abstract questions about whether people “respect” it, or whether it “elevates” us are kinda pointless. I don’t truly “respect” a single thing Chelsea have achieved since Abramovich, or Man City since Abu Dhabi, and I presume almost all of their fans don’t give the slightest shit.

How old are you (genuine question)?You’ve never understood it? Or you stopped understanding it recently? If you never understood it then you’re just being a bit silly. We could go back to the 80s but let‘s just look at the last 20 years or so. Once Abramovich came in it was Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U, Liverpool, then a lot of other teams without silly money and struggling to break into the CL. Levy decided to strip things back, get a ton of kids in and build for the long term. Eventually we got good enough to be consistently top 5 or 6 - after 4th in 2009/10 we finished at least 6th (and usually higher) until 2021 when we were 7th. We’ve gone through this a million times. We were one of the top six clubs in the league and income for over a decade. It’s really not difficult to understand. Are we one of the top 6 clubs or the “sly 6” or whatever you’re annoyed about? You’d have to define your terms, but I’d guess not, we just finished 17th. To say we’re not a financial juggernaut is a bit peculiar though.

Already done mate. It’s who I am.

Apparently we had 27 different players start games in the Europa, with three others making sub appearances. Feels like that must be some kind of record. They ran out of medals. Just shows what a mess this season has been, and what an bizarre achievement this is.

They’ll just move the goalposts. The real thing that is so meaningful with Arsenal is that a couple of years ago they were actually demonstrably too scared to play us so they ran away. We will have that forever.

Wish my Dad could have seen us win this, but then he’d have had to watch the football too, and so maybe it’s for the best.

Shellshocked probably.

Along with Son, this is almost my favourite bit. We’ve been unwatchable, but Ange calling his shot despite that is bonkers.

I wish. Probably would have been more musical too.

This. Happier for him than me, almost.

Naah. Out for the season, like all Man U’s defenders IIRC.

Bit of Chas n Dave, tbh. Edit: Chas anyway.

Couldn’t give the slightest shit . Well, enough to let you know I guess.

Don’t know what to fucking do. It’s 10pm and I’ve got to move a piano. I’m serious.

I’m not sure that happened Appreciate it though, so very much. Going to repeat my walk to the Town Hall to see them parade the 1991 cup. 34 years ago FFFS.

Bode was almost more satisfying, for some reason.

I will eventually. Trying not to have a cardiac arrest right now.

We didn’t win a cup when we were amazing. You didn’t win a cup when you were amazing. There’s so much luck involved to get you over the line.

No Maddison, no Kulusevski, no Bergvall. No wonder it was horrible to watch. The wonder was keeping a clean sheet.

oh FFS. One cup and you’re so dismissive

Would bite all of your limbs off for option 1. Think all of us would tbh.

Not seen AFCTV (or whatever it’s called) for ages as it’s not fun if they’re good, but it’s always been clear that Ty has some kind of neurological disorder/issue. I always feel a bit uncomfortable that they put him on.

The norm IS to hate that. The only ones who won’t are the team that wins. Ruling: Not a pet hate.