He can talk it up all he likes and fans can be upset about losing in these types of cup competitions but at the end of the day,we are where we are because we don’t take these competitions seriously and pick the biggest/best competitions to go full throttle in.It’s a waste of our time and effort right now to put our energy into winning them,the only thing they are good for is game time for our bench warmers and experience for our youth.
If we had for instance Bayern’s team and league where you can dominate every domestic competition because they don’t have 5 of the richest clubs in the world to go up against,plus had the history of winning the last 15 league titles in the last 20 years,you could forgive us for slipping once or twice and going for the odd league or FA Cup but we aren’t in that privileged position and can’t afford to do it.
The clubs finances and health of our players are where we need to focus our main aims,so going all out to win these cups massively jeopardise our chances in the league and CL,thats where the moneys at for us to continue to build our team and put the club at the top of the tree.Whats the point in playing an extra 8 or 9 games in 2 cups for a grand total of around £4mill-£5mill for winning both cups and potentialy injuring players at the same time,then missing out on 10’s of millions to invest in next seasons transfer window.
Only reason Man City go strong in them is cos they’ve cheated there way into buying a strong enough squad to play in them,it’s probably also been there undoing in the long run trying to compete on 5 fronts,playing billy big bollox and then missing out on CL titles,i bet if you asked Man City fans they’d give up all 5 league cup wins in the last 10 years for 1 European CL title.
The only reason i’d want to see us winning a league cup in the next 10 years is if we’ve won a few more league titles and another CL or if we have a batch of exceptional youth talent and bench warmers good enough to win it without using the bulk of our first team,other than that,get out of it early and let the others fight for them and take their eye’s off the real prizes.