Newcastle United 0-2 Watford FC - 26/01/2019 - FA Cup 4th Round

By sending all their players an Italian message that they wake up to in the morning. A little intimidation never hurt anybody, except those that didn’t get the message.

 

Has Round 5 been drawn already, then?

 

Dunno. Guess Wimbledon, Sunderland, Coventry, Portsmouth, Wigan etc could have asked a similar question before the 4th rounds for their respective era giants before they won. Should we just withdraw from the competition?

 

Trying to finish 7th or try to actually win something? Strange it's even an argument. The whole purpose of football is trying to win something isn't it?

 

10 likes for my post so far @lowerrous. Think you may not be articulating the “will of the people” here.

Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind at 5pm tomorrow.

 

Why is Ian Wright dressed as Peter Bowles, when he was in 'To The Manor Born'?

 

Ah, Bedrych!

 

Tomas?

 

Ah, those days when we were a top two club. Now we've fallen so far that we're only a few places above Everton

 

I would definitely warmly reminisce about a 7th place finish for many more years than 7, don't you read all the old duffers (no offence) on here remembering the good times in Div 4 south.

Winning the FA Cup, however, would probably make me happy for the rest of my life. Lets face it there is every possibility that in a few years we will all be remembering the good times when we stayed in the Prem for 4/5/6.... years, but that is not winning anything. You don't support Watford because you expect us to win things, so to actually win something would be fantastic and we are better placed to do that now than we have been for a very long time so let's not throw that away.

We should definitely go all out for the cup and give us all something to hang on to for many years (and shut the feckers up the road up about their ancient ****** cup triumph).

Strong team and win this one, get excited.

 

Touch of the Eubanks, he'll have a cane and monocle next.

 

**** the league, Cup glory is more important.

 

There never was a Div 4 south (says an old duffer)

 

There never was a Div 4 south.
Ah - not first with this one.

 

I can see Newcastle putting out a strong team tomorrow afternnon, they could choose to rest players in their next league game which is against Manchester City a game that they will inevitably lose.

I would love us to go full strength and try and actually win the cup but I don't want that to have a negative impact on every fans dream.... Finishing in the top 10

 

It depends how much significance you attach to the FA Cup really. Just saying that winning a trophy is winning a trophy doesn't mean very much - following that line of thinking you might as well say we should get relegated a couple of times to have an easy chance of winning League One.

I don't view the FA Cup with rose-tinted glasses. Maybe for those from earlier generations it holds a particular romance (perhaps because it's more a more interesting opportunity for clubs in the lower leagues, more teams outside the top 6 used to win it, and domestic competitions had not yet been as fully usurped by European ones), but I think it's mostly a mildly interesting sideshow. Finishing 7th over the course of a full 38 game season would be a more impressive achievement than winning a trophy following 6 random matches.

The only thing I hadn't quite registered is that they'd introduced the reward of automatic Europa League qualification from the group stage - that does give us an extra incentive to winning the tournament, though one which I think is greater than winning the actual trophy per se.

 

Looks like the solar lights were on at the Vic last night. Positively golden!

 

Well, it seems many people disagree, though I am admittedly from an earlier generation (can’t speak for the others!). Finishing 7th is impressive, yes - but it’s not actually winning something.

It’s the most famous domestic Cup competition in the world. It’s hardly comparable to winning League One.

 

Which sadly is still the most significant trophy we have ever won.

 

Quite frankly though, if we lose, at least we get to ‘go again’ in the next round.

 

Anyone aware of pubs in the Watford area that stream the Watford games?

 

Yeah but the will of the people is ultimately irrelevant as premiership clubs are generally run as businesses not by the people. For the record I’d much rather we prioritised the cup but it makes me laugh when tv pundits bemoan the devaluing of the fa cup and wonder why managers don’t take it seriously when the answer is simple and tv, or more specifically tv revenue, is the problem.

Clubs get £360k prize money for making the 5th round of the FA cup compared to c. £30m for finishing 7th in the premier league. Yeah there’s gates receipts and TV revenue from the cup and possibly Europe in the unlikely event you win it but doesnt really change the underlying economics. Most fans would want to go for the FA cup but the financials will dictate otherwise regardless of what bollox managers spout about how much they respect the FA cup bla bla bla.

The premiership has devalued the fa cup and WFC are complicit in this as much as all the other clubs who greedily grab the premiership monies.

 

I don't see why they need to be mutually exclusive. If you lose in 3rd round you can end up with 6 games in 9 weeks (4th round, 5th round, international break). If you aren't in Europe there is no reason whatsoever not to go for the FA Cup and try and finish as high in the league as you can. It's a nonsense that managers think players can't handle one game a week.

 

Bizarre debate. Of course winning the cup would be better, even though 7th would be our second highest ever finish. In reality we are very unlikely to finish 7th and very very unlikely to win the cup. But we absolutely have to give the cup our best shot given there is no chance of relegation. Play the best team and if its that easy today, make some early subs once we are well ahead.

 

For what’s it’s worth i agree with you. But the financials are so massively weighted in the favour of the premiership that management will do anything however marginal to prioritise the premiership.

 

I agree with this sentiment and suspect most on this forum do to. However, I’d be very surprised if we did give it our best shot. We will know shortly when the teams are announced.

 

Fair point. There should be reasonable limits though. There is no good reason to play Gomes or Navarro today. Capoue (for example) doesn't need a rest as he had 3 games off after his red card against Leicester.

The silver lining of course is that Sema probably won't play today because he is somehow considered a key first team player!

 

Problem solved!

Any views on Brexit?

 

Don't get me started....

 

Cake and Eat it. You are Picanninny Johnson and I claim my £5.

 

Intriguing!

 

Just thinking of the deceit and all-round utter stupidity that have led us to where we are today makes my blood boil. There are already 58 threads on the subject elsewhere and I don't want to infect this thread too ...

 

FA Cup win, 7th & hard Brexit?

The cake, eat it & choke on it option.