Leicester 
Iâve said this before and I will say it again. Unpredictability is what makes it great. Giant killings are what make it great.
Please donât allow yourself to diminish the quality of the cup just because it provides both excitement and variety.
They were the best team that season over 38 matches, so they deserved it.
If they won the FA Cup it wouldnât be that unusual for a mid table team to win it, but the fact that Leicester winning the PL made international news shows what an amazing achievement that was.[quote=âOliver, post:143, topic:691, full:trueâ]
Iâve said this before and I will say it again. Unpredictability is what makes it great. Giant killings are what make it great.
Please donât allow yourself to diminish the quality of the cup just because it provides both excitement and variety.
[/quote]When I was younger the FA Cup was the biggest event in football, and was important even in the early rounds.
But since the top clubs, and even lower clubs, rest players and put out weakened teams in the early rounds it has taken a lot of the prestige out of it.
I agree it is exciting, and does provide variety, especially seeing lower division clubs beating the top clubs, but it isnât the true measure of a clubs success.
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Iâm not really sure they do though? The league cup yeah but the FA Cup is taken very seriously.
Southampton kept 4 or 5 of their usual starters on the bench. I wouldnât claim clubs, top or low, take the cup very seriously.
That wasnt the FA cup
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Thats a low barometer you have for what equates to an amazing achievement.
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Top clubs often rest players in the FA cup its just fact. Im stoked we won back to back cups but the reality is its clearly 3rd on the list of priorities.
Of course itâs third, never debated that.
Why is this trophy comparison even a thing? Itâs not even the same league and between those two it merely becomes a matter of what side of the argument you really support as using a year or two more is the difference between one or the other manager doing better in recent time.
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Yeah if you want to try to evaluate Siimeone, you also have to take into consideration the difference in wealth⊠while we are behind a couple of teams by a bit, Simeone is basically like Everton in La Liga, or maybe even worse. The amount of money Barca and Real can spend is just insane compared to everyone else in La Liga, including Atletico.
He has won La Liga and fairly consistently been competitive in the league, while also doing quite well in CL - in terms of resources and results, there is really no other shining example better than him right now.
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Alot of the points in favour about Simeone becoming next Arsenal are equally tantamount to lazy football analysis at times. Itâs easy to spot people who have only absorbed the work heâs done at Atletico at face value and made generic assumptions about his suitability for the Arsenal job on that basis.
One thing I think people tend to neglect about Simeone is his deep symbiotic relationship with Atletico. It why Iâve always questioned whether his methods are transferable to a club like Arsenal who donât resemble Atletico in any way in almost every area.
I think a rebuild project at Inter will interest him more than the Arsenal job ever could. The Inter job allows him to rebuild in relative obscurity whilst approaching progress as an underdog.
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We have had managers who are very little like AW, including Graham, who many long-serving Arsenal fans still revere. It may be true that Simeone will be more interested in another project or that our board and Simeone wonât mesh well - or even that Simeone isnât the right guy for various reasons, but judging him on his record fairly is the only thing we can do without wild speculation of one sort or another. And on that score, the guy is simply a David among Goliaths and he has won.
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I havenât disputed any of what you said. I started writing my post 2 days ago, it belongs a few post up way before the the trophy talk 
Any way on your point, Actual cup trophies donât mean much to me when evaluating managers tbh League form and consistency speaks alot more about a managerâs quality. Plus the numerous variables involved have to be looked at too
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No they arenât, theyâre spending 80-100m the last couple of seasons or so and before that this is the team that went big on Aguero, Falcao and Griezmann. Back in the 90s they were spending obscene amounts for the time. Theyâve never been minows. Itâd be more accurate to compare them to Liverpool financially.
AgĂŒero, Falcao, Griezmann, Torres, Costa, Villa, Forlan, Mandzukic and more, some big striker talents have gone through Atletico at some point. we should try to nick their striker coach tbh, maybe thatâs the clever move lol
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Look at the delta in earnings for Atletico compared to Barca and Real and then look at our delta compared to Chelsea, City, Utd⊠they make WAY, WAY less than the big boys. In relation to their recent spending:
The net amount spent on players according to Transfermarkt was around 42.5 million Euros.
In 15/16 they had net surplus of about 24 million.
14/15 they had net of less than 30 million Euros.
13/14 they had net surplus of 34 million.
12/13 they were pretty break even.
So basically, since 12/13 (inclusive), Atletico Madrid has net spend on transfers of about 15 million Euros.
If you include 11/12, the year they sold Aguero and bought Falcao, it only adds about 3 million Euros to their net spend.
Wages-wise, they are 17th in Europe at 105 million Euros according to http://talksport.com/football/top-20-biggest-wages-bills-europe-revealed-football-clubs-ranked-20-number-one-160706202137?p=3
Liverpool has wage bill OVER A HUNDRED MILLION MORE THAN ATLETICO.
Arsenalâs is 240 million to Atleticoâs 105.
Everton is 97.5 millionâŠ
So here is where it gets silly - Real Madrid wage bill is 289 million and Barca is 340 million.
So basically Arsenal is behind Chelsea by 31 million, ManU by around 15 million, and relatively similar to Man City.
Atletico has wage bill that is 184 million lower than Real and 235 million lower than BarcaâŠ
Not even comparison⊠like I said, they are MUCH more like Everton in relative financial terms than they are Liverpool or us, and the comparison gets more insane when you consider who they are competing with compared to us.
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Good post/argument but youâve shown they have comparable wage spends to Spurs/Dortmund. And they have financial and situational advantages Everton do not have. For one they could invest huge money years before Everton could and have been well managed for years.
Secondly the homegrown rule in England means English teams are forced to pay crappy English players over inflated wages. Their wage bill isnât hugely inflated but they benefit from being the third biggest and richest team in Spain so can snatch up many of the best Spanish youth players. Everton are at best the 7th most desirable team in England for youth players and maybe below that. Thatâs an advantage when Barce/Real spend so much on their first team that all their big talents are pushed out.
Thirdly they have a larger talent pool to pick youth players from many times the size of English clubs. They have a country full of better coaches and there are more of them. All that means Atletico are getting way more youth products coming through than English teams can currently hope to have.
The thereâs the fact they can attract South American talent that prefers playing in Spain which is a big coop in itself.
Lastly if Simeone moved to Everton heâd be finishing 6th tops. They arenât comparable in terms of the quality of players they have playing for them and that isnât Simeoneâs doing.
What? Iâm confused by this. If youâre referring to the Falcao purchase that was only because it was directly financed by AgĂŒeroâs sale. Before Simeone they were not especially well managed btw.
Youâre reaching here, homegrown players donât even have to be English. The homegrown rule in reality is not that restrictive, poor management/managing in England only occasionally makes it soâŠin Spain you are only allowed 3 non-EU players in the team, thatâs more restrictive than the homegrown rule tbh.
Eh, not really, thereâs no significant difference between the size of AtlĂ©ti, Valencia, and Sevilla. Valencia was probably the bigger club before Simeone came in and if AtlĂ©ti is a big club right now itâs purely because Simeone has done things that generate massive cash like 1) go deep into CL year after yearânot to mention qualifyâincluding two finals 2) win the league over Barça and Madrid. AtlĂ©ti was relegated not too long ago. They also certainly wouldnât be richer than Valencia now with Limâs backing, or MĂĄlaga when the sheik first came in (before he decided he wasnât really into it haha) if it werenât for the merits achieved on low budgets by Simeone.
Those talents tend to go to England, or even other clubs in Spain/Germany. Who has AtlĂ©tico had that didnât make it at Madrid/Barça?
See what I said about 3 non-EU spots.
I really donât see why it necessarily has to be this way. Also tbh itâs not like Simeoneâs triumph has really been on the back of youth players, the only significant ones during these years of success have been Koke and Gabi, who was late into his 20s when Simeone got there. Finally, AtlĂ©ti is competing with a number of teams in the Madrid areaâincluding Madrid itself which of course dominates in terms of attracting talent at academy level tooâwhereas Everton has Liverpool.
Is this is a match day squad you mean?