that may be your view but the facts are there in black and white just look at the number of points we had at Christmas and the total we ended up with in May. Pardew wanted to make himself a hero at CP and changed tactics to promote attacking football designed to get him a cup win (don't you remember his jig when we scored 9 minutes from the end!). The continuation of the bad form in to the next season was all down to him and his tactics, in truth he should have been sacked the previous May as his tactics in the second half of that PL season warranted the sack. Additionally, there is plenty of evidence of teams in a relegation battle reaching a cup final and being relegated in the same season!

Judging by Luka's comments after the Donnie game, which had Sutton foaming at the mouth, inside the camp PL survival is paramount, which is fair enough. Fair draw for us, avoiding one of the big boys and a chance to progress, although they will be slimmish favourites with home advantage and full strength team. COYP !!

“ [T]here are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that, we now know we don't know.But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know. ”
—United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld

You look at the record. We were in freefall the next season too. Nothing to do with the FA Cup, everything to do with Pardew.