With the Benefit of Hindsight....

[severnside gull]

Did Gus get it right?

As we all prepare to be crowned champions (no question it is when and not if) and looking back to earlier in the season with the paint pot trophy and the "make mine a pint of lager" league cup and the debate about respecting the fans and prioritising the league (when we were humiliated at Northampton and at home against Orient) and then the furore over picking the reserves in the FA Cup as we struggled to get past non-league opposition.

Many of us thought he was wrong and I for one will gladly put my hand up that I thought we should have picked a stronger side in the FA Cup at least and that our form suffered as a direct result.

But at the end of the day we are where we are and all respect, you have to say Gus was right! Don't you?

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

I think you're right, although I didn't question Gus at the time.

 

[bhaexpress]

Did Gus get it right?

As we all prepare to be crowned champions (no question it is when and not if) and looking back to earlier in the season with the paint pot trophy and the "make mine a pint of lager" league cup and the debate about respecting the fans and prioritising the league (when we were humiliated at Northampton and at home against Orient) and then the furore over picking the reserves in the FA Cup as we struggled to get past non-league opposition.

Many of us thought he was wrong and I for one will gladly put my hand up that I thought we should have picked a stronger side in the FA Cup at least and that our form suffered as a direct result.

But at the end of the day we are where we are and all respect, you have to say Gus was right! Don't you?

I don't think he got it wrong at all and in fact I got a fair amount of abuse for suggesting on a thread that did we really want to go far in the FA Cup. MY feeling was that we should have focused on the league. Playing in Cups is all very well and good but the only competition we had any realistic chance of winning was the Paint Pot Cup. Meanwhile playing extra games may generate extra (and yes needed) revenue but it also brings injuries and suspensions (Navaro for example). It also tires players. Did it affect our form ? To be honest going to replays against non league opposition in FA Cup rounds one and two did IMHO.

Still, it doesn't really matter now does it ?

 

[nutter]

For me it is all about odds. I constantly have this debate with friends about cup versus league. I personally prefer us to focus on the league and forget about the cup because it doesn't make sense to get so obsessed over a small amount of glory ie: beating man city on pens compared to winning a league. Even if we had a crap season but we staved off relegation it doesn't bother me. The thing is people always talk about 1983 and the FA cup ,and I know it was more important back then, but we were relegated that season too. We need to get to the top division and play against the bigger sides week in week out and not just once a year. Also, for me, the only cup that really would matter (all be it in about 10 years/ 20!!) would be the champions league. Now that is all about the glory! Anyway, I know the last point is highly unrealistic but Gus has definitely got his priorities right and I for one cannot wait till next season. Up the Albion!

 

[Everest]

No need to even ask the question, IMO.

The league table gives the answer.

 

[k2bluesky]

For the first couple of rounds of the FA cup the players just get a weekend off if they don't play, which can lose them match fitness and disrupt the 'winning' flow at an important time in the season and as we found lead to uneccessary replays, thus adding extra unwanted matches.
I would have to say play the first team in those first 2 rounds (although our reserves should have been able to deal with Woking/FC United, for the other two cups, sure play some of the reserves to see if they are good enough and the answer in all cases is that they weren't.
I certainly enjoyed the games v Portsmouth and Watford which only added to the team's self belief in being able to compete at Championship level.

 

[NMH]

Never doubted.

Playing it safe in the cup, and we still got quite a way!

 

[Mellotron]

We were humiliated at home against Orient.

I thought we'd put this one to bed. We totally outplayed Orient then went on the backfoot after their first effort of the first half, a completely fluky deflected goal. Our performance was not humiliating at all.

 

[Acker79]

I was thinking about this the other day. Mainly I was trying to find a thread that after the first woking game declared that the FA cup had ruined the league for us, which I found a ridiculous sentiment as at that point we hadn't played a league game after the fa cup one for any evidence at all that it had ruined the league run.

I don't know if we can say, even with hindsight, that he got it right or wrong. We had a decent run in the FA Cup, our first for what was it 25 years? For us, that was a long cup run, and here we are promoted with 5 games to spare. Who is to say that a run in the JPT or League cup wouldn't have helped us carry over momentum quicker and perhaps we would have picked up more points and already be champs. If we beat Northampton in the league cup perhaps we'd have gone in to the game at home v Rochdale with more confidence and got the win, that run of wins could have carried over to us beating Sheffield Wednesday or just a draw.

If we beat woking comprehensively at the first attempt, there wouldn't have been the whole thing with Gus getting pissed off with the fans booing the team for failing to achieve anything against a team several divisions below us, and the positive feeling around the club would remain and we wouldn't have had the run of draws that followed.

Football is often said to be about confidence and success breeding success, or simply momentum. While faced with 8 games in march, and with Wood away and Barnes injured Gus talked about wanting to give Murray a rest, but not wanting to because he was in a rich vein of form.


For all we know playing the first team in the cup games could well have meant we won the championship before the end of March.

We can say he didn't get it wrong, since we've had success regardless, but we don't know if things would have been better if he had done things differently. I don't mean this as a criticism. Anyone who isn't happy with how things have turned out have questionable fan credentials. But hindsight doesn't prove things would have worked out worse for us if we had played stronger teams in those cup games.