You've been absent and therefore missed the full 10 page discussion on how we should rank teams' seasons so I'll give you a pass. But here's a hint: United aren't at (2). Also, I don't watch Sky Sports.

I would love for you to elaborate.

Perhaps I'm old fashioned - to me successful Football is about winning trophies, not just booking yourself a date with CSKA Moscow just to make the suits happy for the extra revenue.

iirc it was decided that altho mun had more trophies than spuds they were too mickey mouse in nature to make up for 6th plus having to watch mouball every week

Clearly, finishing in the top4 is overstated and not worth the plaudits that it gets. However, you a throwing the baby out with the bathwater to suggest that all teams have equal metrics for measuring a good season. You're also assuming that winning all competitions is an equal proposition, or even that winning something like the League Cup may be better than qualifying for the biggest and most prestigious tournament in the world.

Take a team like Spurs, who had a fantastic season in 15/16. Most people expected to regress, mostly on the basis of 5 other teams outspending them and having to play a lot more meaningful games. Instead they cemented their place as one of the best teams in the League and qualified for the CL for a second year.

Compare that to a team like Man U, who spent all the money in the world and signed a manager whose only redeeming feature is that he is good at winning things. They may have won a meaningful tournament, which is a benefit, but to suggest that on the basis of pre-season expectations that they can be seen as having a better season the Spurs is ****ing nuts.

tldr: Yes, you are old fashioned.

Also, looking at trophies (especially those earned in knockout competitions) is problematic for judging team or manager performance and evaluating their future worth.

If you think that due to the trophies, Utd can feel second best out of PL clubs about their 16/17 season, I won't argue. If you say that due to winning those trophies Mou has done a fantastic job and everyone should have the highest confidence in him going forward, I'd say that's BS.

Spurs "fantastic" 15-16 season is on the level of Norwich '92-93, Forest '94-95, Newcastle 02-03. Teams that weren't really fancied to finish 3rd but did. We'll ignore that niggling feeling that they should have given Leicester a harder run-in, the embarassing capitulation of discipline and honour vs Chelsea and Newcastle, and Wenger coming up on the rails and e,barassing them.

Last season was a big steaming pile of 'meh' from Spurs. No title challenge on Chelsea, utterly embarassing in the Champions League, more embarassing in the Europa League, and when they had a genuine shot at a trophy they went wobbly kneed against Chelsea. Spurs 'great' seasons 15-16 and 16-17 are the kind of seasons proper winning teams would want to do an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on in order to forget.

Joe spitting some truth bombs in here

I didn't really say that unless I'm being full-on kayfabe JoeDiego.

There was a few worrying things about Mourinho last season - refusal to properly engage with the hard work of getting the best out of Martial or Shaw, the length of time it took him to realise that we need to be playing with the Carrick role (if not actual Carrick), the defeatist rhetoric etc.

On balance though, he got way more things right than wrong, and actually despite his stereotype we played our most attractive brand of football since 11-12. I don't really care about that though.

and mun's 16/17 is what

i mean if real won the copa del rey and europa league and finished 6th in la liga rits would probably hang himself

This is the team that sacked Del Bosque for doing a domestic double IIRC! Even post-Fergie United aren't on that level of idiocy.

United 16-17 reminds me a lot of United 90-91 and a little less so of United 05-06, both beautiful building block seasons.

Dont forget Spurs won the 2 year title.

Best u24 manager itw.

Don't really expect anyone to refute this lol.

Popping in and see that utd bit

Rofl

I feel for you.

We ordered a couple of new, bespoke couches on 1 March which they said would take 4-6 weeks. We finally got to sit on the ones we wanted last week. In the meantime the first ones they brought were the wrong colour, then we got the right colour but the wrong size.

The wife foolishly paid them when they brought the second, wrong size one - she didn't realise until they'd gone and she tried to close the door - so it took ages to get that replaced.

The factory where they make them is in Blackburn, so I reckon they knew I was a Burnley fan.

We got a free footstool out of it.

here for diego

United are only not number 2 to people that are brain-dead. Stop watching football if you think winning two trophies is worse than winning no trophies.

funny how we have to state this

Gotta give utd fans credit for their stuff upper lipness if nothing else. Can't imagine the pain of watching them going from swashbuckling their way to winning everything in style to the hot garbage mess they have become on and off the pitch.

This is exactly the lack of nuance we've come to expect from you over the years. GJ!

oh its that simple eh

i suppose arse's run of 3 trophies in 4 years explains why arsefan is so satisfied with their club at the moment, and def not having a collective nervous breakdown every other weekend or anything

Jesus

We're not gonna do this again are we lads. Thought we got this out of our systems a few months ago

Yeah, the return of JoeDiego has revitalised this thread. I, for one, hope we get to rehash the "x is world class" debate again.

it is simple as far as objectively judging season achievements.

We can debate of course about the monetary value of said tournaments and which one "means" something. 10 years ago Man City fans would have celebrated for 2 weeks straight if they won the FA cup. Now its meh, whatever be happy with it scrubs.

Also ManU/Arse fans can be frustrated with the way the club's been run over the last few years, but as far as I'm concerned trophy>no trophy.

And yes even the past season has been a lot more satisfying than the seasons when we never came close to winning, but comfortably qualified ourselves for the CL

paging KW. we can just copy/paste our skype ramblings about this to save the thread some time

As long as the 1st or 0th minute discussion doesn't return I'm fine with it