Moyes In or Moyes Out

claretandbluesky

What is clear is that we need wins, not draws and if we look at our remaining fixtures Southampton at home is without doubt our most winnable game on paper, so it would be hard to have much confidence should we not win this one.

BubblesNeverDies

I would go so far as to say that if we don't win on Sunday, we deserve to be relegated.

claretandbluesky

BubblesNeverDies said:

I would go so far as to say that if we don't win on Sunday, we deserve to be relegated.

I would say we deserve the rest of our matches to show we don't deserve to be but it would be hard to make a case for the idea that we would be able to use them that way.

It really is such a critical game as I would imagine at this moment the players and coaches believe they can avoid relegation and begin to climb the table, but should we lose this match I think mentally they couldn't fail to doubt themselves and that could be fatal.

I think we will win and I think it will be the start of us showing what we can do when we have our backs against the wall.

Deanscaleshammer

We have 6 points from the last 6 league games. We need around a point per game to keep us up, I guess. It would be great to win this but not a disaster if we draw imo.

No benefit I can see to changing manager at this stage.

OldCastleSwift

There's some suggestions online that Moyes is prepared to sacrifice our ECL games for Premier League survival.

Ideally, we'd stay up and win the ECL, but if it was a straight choice between A) finishing 17th and getting knocked out by Gent, or B ) winning the cup and being relegated, what are you choosing?

Personally, it's B for me by a country mile, but it seems others on social media see PL survival as much more desirable.

steve

PL survival for me ,we need it for our future

jay_in_cpt

PL survival all day long, no question whatsoever for me.....

OldCastleSwift

steve said:

PL survival for me ,we need it for our future

That seems to be the primary argument, but why to teams aspire to be in the PL? Presumably to have a better chance of winning things and/or qualify to Europe.

I think with Newcastle's new money and Arsenal's re-emergence, our chances of either of those things diminish if we stay in the PL. Then we just become another also-ran competing for scraps.

I'd much rather we actually won something and got another season in the Europa League, even if meant a few years in the Championship.

OldCastleSwift

jay_in_cpt said:

PL survival all day long, no question whatsoever for me.....

Again, this seems to be the most popular position.

But in your twilight years, would you rather be reminiscing over a European tournament victory, or that period of our history where we stayed in the PL for decades but achieved nothing?

I know there are a lot of variables and unknowns, but I'm genuinely surprised that so many would pass up the opportunity of their team winning a trophy just to stay in the PL.

Hamstew

B for me.

nychammer66

So next year could find us in the championship (I still think of it as div 2) but competing in Europa league. What if we won Europa, thus qualifying for champions league the following year, but failed to get back into the premiership? We would be first team in champs league not in top flight.

OutcastLondoner

nychammer66 said:

So next year could find us in the championship (I still think of it as div 2) but competing in Europa league. What if we won Europa, thus qualifying for champions league the following year, but failed to get back into the premiership? We would be first team in champs league not in top flight.

You've convinced me to choose B.

buffybegood

OldCastleSwift said:

I'd much rather we actually won something and got another season in the Europa League, even if meant a few years in the Championship.

Apart from the fact that if we go down we'd lose the decent players we have meaning a complete rebuild and a weaker squad should we manage to come back up, there's no guarantee that it would only be a few years in the Championship.

We've been lucky in that we've managed to win promotion quickly the last few times we've been relegated, although only through the lottery of the play-offs the last couple of times. The majority of the teams in the Championship (19 out of 24 I think) have played in the PL, half a dozen or so teams in League 1 are also ex-PL, as well as a smattering of clubs even lower.

Living in Bristol I don't get to many games, so being in the PL is important in that I get to see all our matches rather than the handful I'd see if we get relegated, and it's the fear of being out of the PL for a prolonged period that means I'd have to pick PL survival, but hopefully we'll manage both.

alderz

I’ve never seen us win anything. I would choose a trophy every time.

That said, I think a rotated side should be good enough to get through the next round tbh.

OldCastleSwift

Buffy - of course there's no guarantee that it would be only a few seasons, but to be honest I'd take 30 years in the Championship if it meant a trophy in my lifetime. I'm into my 44th year on this planet and for all of our top flight seasons, I've only ever seen us lift the InterToto Cup, a Play Off trophy and the Betway Cup.

thornburyiron

I’ve seen 3 FA cup wins and a cup winners cup win plus a few losing finals so I’ll go for PL.

buffybegood

OldCastleSwift said:

Buffy - of course there's no guarantee that it would be only a few seasons, but to be honest I'd take 30 years in the Championship if it meant a trophy in my lifetime. I'm into my 44th year on this planet and for all of our top flight seasons, I've only ever seen us lift the InterToto Cup, a Play Off trophy and the Betway Cup.

I very much doubt I've got another 30 years left in me, but as much as I'd love to see us win another trophy (I did get to watch, on TV, our FA Cup wins in '75 and '80) I'd hate not to be able to watch our matches every week, even in horrible seasons like this one.

jay_in_cpt

There is nothing better than COMPETING in the EPL… but each to their own, let’s be real a very average European cup win means little to me, but hey each to their own, championship is simply 2nd rate and not somewhere I wanna see West Ham play…

Lukerz

The issue is relegation will take the gloss off the trophy win. We need to stay up for that to be meaningful.

OldCastleSwift

buffybegood said:

OldCastleSwift said:

Buffy - of course there's no guarantee that it would be only a few seasons, but to be honest I'd take 30 years in the Championship if it meant a trophy in my lifetime. I'm into my 44th year on this planet and for all of our top flight seasons, I've only ever seen us lift the InterToto Cup, a Play Off trophy and the Betway Cup.

I very much doubt I've got another 30 years left in me, but as much as I'd love to see us win another trophy (I did get to watch, on TV, our FA Cup wins in '75 and '80) I'd hate not to be able to watch our matches every week, even in horrible seasons like this one.

And I guess that's part of it for me. If there's success within our reach this season, then I'd prefer that we go for it rather than sacrifice it for the PL and potential success that that may or may not offer in the future.

I respect your reasons for wanting us to stay up, and hopefully we will 👍

PrestonHammer

Go for both. What's the point of having a bigger or better squad or even being in the Pl if we don't even try to win something? The players should be able to play in all the games, most have had enough breaks to not feel tired.

Slacker

buffybegood said:

OldCastleSwift said:

Buffy - of course there's no guarantee that it would be only a few seasons, but to be honest I'd take 30 years in the Championship if it meant a trophy in my lifetime. I'm into my 44th year on this planet and for all of our top flight seasons, I've only ever seen us lift the InterToto Cup, a Play Off trophy and the Betway Cup.

I very much doubt I've got another 30 years left in me, but as much as I'd love to see us win another trophy (I did get to watch, on TV, our FA Cup wins in '75 and '80) I'd hate not to be able to watch our matches every week, even in horrible seasons like this one.

Get yourself a chipped firestick mate, you can watch any championship game you like.
Regarding the question, I’m old enough and selfish enough to say that I’ve actually seen us win stuff (I know unbelievable right?) , I’ve also enjoyed some of the seasons in the second division, particularly the away days, but not much comes close to turning over the big sides in the top league.Look I know we will probably never win the league but once every twenty years or so there’s that “ could we?” thought towards the end of a great season.
For those reasons I’d take survival this season.

OldCastleSwift

Lukerz said:

The issue is relegation will take the gloss off the trophy win. We need to stay up for that to be meaningful.

Well yeah, ideally we'd achieve both. But a trophy win is a trophy win. Be good to do it whilst staying in the league, but better to win it and be relegated than not win it and still go down.

MIAHammer

OldCastleSwift said:

Lukerz said:

The issue is relegation will take the gloss off the trophy win. We need to stay up for that to be meaningful.

Well yeah, ideally we'd achieve both. But a trophy win is a trophy win. Be good to do it whilst staying in the league, but better to win it and be relegated than not win it and still go down.

Good point OCS. Worst case scenario is we prioritize PL and still go down. Might as well put our best team forward for each game and just go for it.

claretandbluesky

I would go for PL each time. I may have reconsidered if this was last season and we were talking about the Europa.

I am pretty much pretending the conference is a real trophy because we are in it this season, but I actually think it's a little bit of a nothing. I actually thought I may have wanted Spurs to win it last season as I looked forward to the memes of Harry Kane celebrating winning the conference league as though it was something.

Don't get me wrong I do want to win it this year and I love a knock out match but if it's a choice between a summer of trying to attract decent players to compete with the best again next season or watch a team built over a few seasons get sold off, but we have a cup we ourselves would probably call tinpot and question it's need were we not in it, then it PL for me.

I think the teams we have played so far are lower end championship and upper end league one in quality. We have a team full of mostly internationals, it should be like shooting ducks in a barrel so I am not sure we can get over excited.

My hope is Moyes sorts it out starting from tomorrow and guides us to safety and also wins the cup.

claretandbluesky

The best thing about winning the conference is it gets you into the Europa next season which is a credible European competition in my view. We deservedly got excited to be playing and beating Seville and Lyon and I would quite like a couple of those matches again. However if we get in but get relegated it may be doubly bad as the team post fire sale will never compete and it will likely hinder an attempt at immediate promotion.

MunichHammer

We have another 3 matches before we first play Gent. All three are matches we could get something from.
How about we wait until we have played Fulham before we decide to leave the ECL without a fight?

claretandbluesky

Lets hope Moyes thinks like that, all he needs think about now is three points tomorrow, and if we can get them we will move to 14th and be 3 points behind Palace in 12th with two games in hand. It is such a big game as it has the possibility to heap the pressure on or remove it.

Yeoldhammer

No resting players, full strength team in every game. They get paid money to do it and if these players harbour ambitions of playing higher up its only going to be the same workload as here.

jay_in_cpt

Brendan Rodgers leaves Leicester