For me, there seems very little point in qualifying for the EL only to go out in the next round when he plays the kids away against Benfica or some such.
The benefits are
There's being optimistic and sentimental and there is being realistic. You can see how not having to play mid week has affected Liverpool and Chelsea's form this year. From a fitness point of view, and having a whole week to prepare for the next game.
- More experience playing at Wembley before next season where we could be dreading every home game.
- More experience for players like Onoma, CCV even Edwards, who probably won't see any playing time until next season otherwise, barring some lucky FA cup draws.
I know the arguments about "what's the point finishing 4th if...." or "its a trophy we can win, we should just go for it". But If i'm honest i'm just sick of the EL. We've made the numbers up year after year. Earlier on they used to tout us one of the favourites to win it, but in reality we have never even been close and our form by large in the knockouts has been garbage.
So i'll give the half arsed, disjointed cobbled together squads and performances and the scrappy results a miss thanks. I would dearly love to see us win it. But it's unlikely the manager will take it as seriously as the supporters will so bin it off.
I would like us to and win the Europa League, guarantees CL football again. Also if we do qualify for it, we join it at the knock out phase which is far more interesting than the gruelling group stage. We're also more than likely to have better teams to play against rather than ties against Astra Goo Goo or Dynamo Cheekgirls. We need get into winning ways at Wembley, as we have a whole season there to get through and we don't want to suffer the same fate as the Spanners. 9 games from the final isn't as hard as trying to win the league, which looks far more difficult than last season. Let's get through the busy Christmas period and see where we are in the league before deciding on the benefits of ditching the EL.
Assuming we qualify of course.