I vote for the FA Cup.
What's the point of finishing 17th every year if you don't ever have some fun?
Beating Man City occasionally is a little fun but nowt compared to the magic of Punch scoring that goal in the FA Cup Final. I want more of that please

Parrot

Mr Cadbury's Parrot says "Hello"

Then presumably, both you and 'Willo' will, if you can be arsed, be watchimg the final, should we reach it, from the comfort of your armchairs.

Always so many posts on other threads re: Cup or PL? Genuinely starting to annoy me now.

We stumbled to the cup final with a team that was suffering from an infamous Pardew run in the league.

The FA cup and League are not mutually exclusive, we would only have to win two more games to be in the final and whoever imagines that people would forget about our PL fight for survival on a daily basis should we progress in the cup are talking nonsense.

Desperate need for us to survive the in the Prem but cup success is a different entity and that would be magnificent. Can't be bored of a cup we have never even won!

There are 12 games left, a couple more will not hurt and we should be able to compete on both fronts without any hassle.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

I'm with TUX on this.

Ex players doing radio and TV punditry are not the most erudite of chaps and you can see or hear they are just winging it with space fill platitudes and awful humour. However, one thing they seem to unite on is the Cup. The same question is asked: did you see the Cup as a distraction. Answer: definitely not. Getting knocked out stuffs confidence and loses momentum. OK, but you are fresher with more energy missing a weekend? Answer: we're athletes. We're fully conditioned to last the term, cup games and all. The games add absolutely nothing to fatigue levels. If anything, we're sharper.

Shearer constantly proves he has nothing of any merit to say. However, as a player I trust his opinion on what he thought as a player. Newcastle players, he says, would be happy with a comfy mid table finish and a good Cup run.

OK what else are pundits going to say co-hosting a Cup game? However, the proof seems to be in the pudding. Teams suffer from a Thursday night in Moldova in the Noddy Euro. But there seems no advantage from missing the Cup.

Lose an important player through injury and you might get a different answer. Or maybe you could have lost said important player while training over the same weekend?

You then have to look at commerce. You have to win it to get the big returns. However, the gain is in international recognition; increased sales of merchanside worldwide; a reducing reliance on TV revenue; correspondingly reducing impact of FFP...

And then there's the poor old fans. Battling every season for mid-table survival until we inevtitably do a Stoke. You'll look back in 10 years while we try year after year for the miracle to get us back up and think - what was it all for? Those wembley days, that's what.

The Most convincing argument for the FA Cup I have read here!

The only this it does not address is the 'distraction' Element. Having 'One eye on the cup' is not a good way to garner points from a League game in this division. Like it or not, the best Way to progress as a club is to bring in the money that the Premier League offers. To win the FA Cup at the expense of the Premier League survival is short-termism and where it will benefit the Fans and give them 'those Wembley days', it'll do more damage to the club in the long run if that means relegation to the ultra competive and far Less lucrative Championship.

I am all for the FA Cup, It can do wonders for moral and gives the 2nd string a chance to impress - which can only be good for cometition. But would take PL survival first any day of the week.

"It was a Team effort, I guess it took all players working together to lose this one"

I have been in conversation with a chap who is very knowledgable about football, regarding teams who have got to an FA Cup final and then been relegated in the same season.

Wigan are the only team to have actually won the FA Cup and been relegated that season.That was back in 2013 and they have never returned to the PL.Portsmouth got to the final in 2010, were relegated and have has spells in League One and League Two.They have not returned to the top flight.Brighton got to the FA Cup final in 1983 and it too them over 30 years to get to the PL !

All these supporters had their day out in the sun for the final but one can only speculate as to whether this was any compensation for the heartbreak of relegation.

Edited by Willo (19 Feb 2019 10.51am)