Cock on Ball

The Carling Cup put into context

by Dave

Shouldn’t this have been put up about 2 months ago Dave?

Yes, it probably should have been.

I mean no, I needed this time to properly take stock of the situation, and get all my eggs in a line so I could count them. Or something.

Anyway, with Arsenal’s defeat to Man U at the weekend following their loss against Liverpool in the Champions League last week, it does now seem that we will indeed finish the season with more silverware than them.

And it hasn’t gone unnoticed. On Saturday before the game against Boro, the dodgy t-shirt sellers outside the Lane (what is the deal with that anyway?) were cashing in with hastily cobbled together merchandise, proudly bearing an image of Arsenal’s empty trophy cabinet.

And why not? I think it’s fair enough to enjoy the moment, and who can resist making a big deal of the Carling Cup victory to wind up their Gooner work mates? Still, let’s get this victory in proper perspective.

First the positives. Winning the Carling Cup is no small achievement – we had to beat four Premier League sides, including two of the top three, plus Man City away, which at the time was thought an impossible feat. In fact, from this angle you can argue that it is a greater achievement than winning the FA Cup would be this season – only Barnsley had a comparatively hard run.

Not only are these results good on paper, but the reality of these games is that they were won through a combination of quality attacking football, solid defending and precision tactical manoeuvring. At no point in our progress could you point at Lady Luck – this was a deserved achievement.

I’m torn between using “however” or “but” at this point. The structure of this article is so painfully predictable that it virtually writes itself, but at this stage, and with nothing left to play for, it feels right that I should perhaps experiment with something a bit leftfield.

And yet (genius), if given the choice I would honestly swap the Cup victory for another season in the top 6. I really would. I’m incredibly envious of what Everton have achieved this year, and if we do finish in the bottom half of the table below teams like West Ham and Blackburn, then that would signify a far greater step backwards for the club, than the Cup would represent progress.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the Carling Cup is worthless, or that our victory is meaningless. The victory shows that we are truly capable of beating the top teams, and we can now take this knowledge into our league games against the top four next season.

However (there we go, couldn’t help myself), it is a mistake to leap to the conclusion that because we have beaten teams like Arsenal and Chelsea to win the Cup, we can now consider ourselves on a similar level to them. We are not, and we are very long way away from even being able to dream of being in that bracket.

Of course, winning cups and climbing the league are not necessarily completely unrelated. For example, Mourinho’s first trophy at Chelsea was the Carling Cup. There is such a thing as a winning mentality, and hopefully our Carling Cup victory will be a factor in us developing one as a team.

Actually, there’s no hopefully about it. We must build on this victory and make it count, otherwise we will be no different to the likes of Boro, Blackburn and Leicester, who also all won the Carling Cup in the last decade. It’s a nice thing to have, but if we don’t make our experience in this tournament count, then it will literally become meaningless in the seasons to come.

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The Carling Cup put into context

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