The FA bending over for the big boys

Quoted from Heisenberg

I actually agree with scrapping replays, which might leave me on my own after the awesome Luton replay last season, but the other proposals are reprehensible.

I'm sure if we were drawing with a top 6 Premier League side going into the 90th minute at BP, and the winner would be away to Bournemoth in round 4, you might feel somewhat differently

Just get rid of same-league replays, then the whinging PL teams won't need to face off with each other again, which I think is their main problem with replays. If they can't beat a side from a lower division they deserve the inconvenience of a replay. Either that or bring in no replays by prior agreement. If both clubs agree before the game that there won't be a replay, sorted. If one doesn't agree then it goes to replay. Easy-peesy.

The football league, with the FAs approval copulated a decent competition because they saw pound signs, a few fans protested but not enough was made of it, clubs were given an insurance payout essentially to cover costs, then thousands turned up in their droves, because why care about the long term impact detrimental effect it would have on football for a poxy day out at Wembley, Lincoln fans I’m looking at you…

No doubt this is to accommodate the big clubs but what we really mean is a handful of top flight clubs, which, ironically, are the only teams that generally get to the last 8/4 and final, so it can’t be impacting them too bad.

flipping games gone but are we surprised the FA are spineless.

Hang on, let me get this straight...

Premier League teams, with their hugely inflated squads, don't want replays because they're an inconvenience?

They all have squads big enough to play twice a week, every week.

The majority of PL clubs aren't playing in Europe (and those that do could name THREE teams from their vast squads).

This is getting utterly ridiculous.

They have the player resources to deal with replays. If they can't handle the odd FA Cup replay then why are so many seeking B teams??

It's actually farcical. I mean, it's obvious what's going on. It's not about tradition, heritage or history. It's about money, pure and simple.

Pure greed.

I'm genuinely at the point where I actively want the so-called elite teams to break away and fúck right off. Right off into Europe, or wherever, and play in front of plastic fans at silly hours of the day. Leave them to it.

Meanwhile the rest of us can try and enjoy more traditional football that actually means something to the working class.

What makes me laugh is that Town played (off the top of my head) 59 games last season. If you go down further down the non-league pyramid, clubs that are semi-pro play in their own league cups, county cups and FA Cup preliminary rounds and qualifiers and can play even more. They're happy to be competing on so many fronts.

The so-called top clubs are so full of themselves. Once you've been to their ground once you can tick a box as it isn't all its made out to be. Gratifying when the self-entitled so-called bigger PL teams become unstuck though.

I did a right mixture of games last season but strangely enough, one of my favourites was an old-school trip to and win at Sutton and the tourists at many PL grounds will never know what that feels like.

I've read a few books by Mat Guy recently and I'd recommend them. He really captures the joy of watching a team in the lower leagues or non-league pyramid.

In my opinion the easiest thing to do would be to reinvent the Football League Cup. No Premiership teams which solves their “issue” of potentially playing 3 or 4 games extra for most of them. Then make it more of a round robin and ditch the Papa John’s combining them perhaps into semi-regionalised groups of 5 with 2 home games and 2 away games. Guaranteed income, no U23 teams, perhaps allow the 3 promoted teams to the Premiership entry to make it up to 75 teams so 15 groups of 5… maybe include the 2 relegated and 3 losing playoff teams from NL to have 80 teams and thus 16 groups. Top 2 from each group go through to last 32 etc. This will give lower league teams potentially better guaranteed income than the PJ (as Championship teams will be in it) and at least as many matches as Carabao and PJ combined. Can even seed the groups based on previous seasons league standings. Not being in the Carabao may mean Premiership teams look forward to th FA Cup again?

April already??

This must be a joke.

I might miss out on another glorious journey but I think that's me boycotting the fa cup from now on.

Whatever the prem want, the prem get.

Nothing lasts forever and neither will the premiership. Money and power corrupts and that corruption will see the whole thing come crashing down. But although we moan about them, none of us would moan if we did a Luton, or if we had another good cup run drawing premiership teams along the way. We wouldn’t turn down the tv money and worldwide attention of playing against the elite sides. But all that aside, I feel for the real fans of these clubs, watching, as the life and soul of the thing they love, is sucked out, by owners who would make Fleetwood’s Andy Pilley seem like Florence Nightingale!

The premier league is here to stay. Since it’s inception there has been talk of it going bang, probably like Italian football but in truth, the premier league is much more stable than Serie A ever was.

One thing you have to give them credit for is building something that will last, I’m well aware there’s arguments as to whether or not it is sustainable but even when teams have teetered on the edge of going bust, the league has remained fairly untouched. There are other positive influences it has had on the game but they’re often over looked because of the obscene cash involved.

In this context, the FA cup, I don’t think it’s probably all the teams and ironically, it’s likely to be those middling teams; Villa, Palace, Newcastle etc, teams who don’t have squads like City or Chelsea but also, haven’t won anything for what must feel like forever. They’ll likely see the changes as potentially making it easier for them to find a route to the final. Fans won’t want the changes of courses, well, a fair few won’t. I could be wrong, Klopp has moaned about the FA cup since he got here but then he finds anything to moan about, Pep has made comments but to his credit, he has always taken the cup competitions seriously.

This feels more of the FA trying to appease clubs rather than clubs going to them first. There’s definitely mileage in scrapping extra time and going straight to penalties and whether we like it or not, we can see the games being moved to midweeks but the other suggestions are flipping mind blowing.

Playing the final on the same day as the last day of the league? That makes no flipping sense, I may have read that wrong but I’d that’s a suggestion then they’re clearly more clueless than we first thought. They’ve played it before the end of the season before, I’m sure of it and I guess that links in with Wembley availability but not on the same day…

The FA have lost their minds over the years, they didn’t need to, they could’ve worked with the leagues in a joined up way but they didn’t, in some respects you can see why the premier league take the urine, they’re allowed to.

I'd shake up the FA Cup if I could.  In my version all the prem teams would be entered in round 1 proper, never agreed with this getting to bypass a couple of rounds because you're already privileged nonsense.  It's easy to win the thing every other year when you only play half the games everyone else has to