njligernj
Player Valuation: £15m
tl;dr warning ...
Could be four since if you make the CL you often get a second chance at a Cup in Europa. However it really doesn't change things that much. Arsenal have had a better team than we have had over the past eight years (sometimes hugely better) yet I'm not remotely surprised they haven't won a Cup. It's (mostly) one-loss and you are done games with a lot of luck of the draw. They have maybe a 5% shot of winning any one Cup* (lower in CL) so they have slightly underperformed (just like some other teams have over-performed in certain Cups) but it's not especially noteworthy. They "should" win a Cup every 20 tries and they haven't won in 24 attempts ... not particularly remarkable.
*Even if Arsenal are going to win 95% of the time v. lower opposition that's still one Cup lost every 20 times they play a lower league team (which might happen multiple times in one tournament). Then maybe 70% v. lower Prem teams and 50-60% v. top 7? You can change the odds to fit your preference but regardless you have to fade those odds every single round.
We're the (third? fourth?) most successful club in English history and we've won the FA Cup five times in over a hundred years.
I did some rough math(s) based on their founding dates (scrubbing out 10 years to make up for "lost years" -- not sure if that's right but it's equal across the board and I couldn't be bothered looking it up) and this is a *rough* win rate for the most successful English clubs in the FA, League and current Euro Cups (the Cups we could potentially play in next year even though the latter is a big long-shot now):
One Cup every ...
RS: 5.5 years.
Man U: 7 years.
Chelsea: 8.2 years.
Arse: 9.75 years (so they have about two more years to win a Cup and be right on their all-time pace).
Spurs: 10.1 years.
Villa: 11.6 years.
Man City: 15.6 years.
Everton: 25 years (remember no Cup Winner's here ... although if we add it in one every 21 years isn't significantly better reading). Hell add in league titles and we only win something of note (no MLS trophy things) once every 8.3 years. And of course they don't come right on schedule -- think about how we had a few titles in the 80's clumped together ... that means there were some long stretches of nothing. It's not really that remarkable for something which happens once every 8.3 years to have not happened in 11 years. I'll say the same thing when we have a new manager who doesn't win anything too (although in league finishing positions I may be a harsher critic). Although in fairness the last 20 years with no Cup (only half of which is Moyes of course) stretches this average -- we won once every 7 years after our win in 1995.
Now obviously if you add in league titles it's a shorter wait for winning something for everyone but this was to address specifically the point that we (or Arsenal or whomever) "should" have won a Cup in the last few years. Only the top five clubs in history (for Cups) win once every 10 years and we haven't been a top five club in the last ten years (close though). Historically speaking, based on our team quality (top seven) it's probably reasonable to expect (assuming you remain a top seven club for those years) a Cup once every 12-15 years on average. As a club we are in a bad patch at almost 20 years; under Moyes it's almost worse than we should expect but he has a few more years to win if he stays.
Little bit depressing but that's just the way it is. Now of course past events don't predict future results but its a bit of perspective. Long but I found it interesting if nobody else.
I said one and a half.
Could be four since if you make the CL you often get a second chance at a Cup in Europa. However it really doesn't change things that much. Arsenal have had a better team than we have had over the past eight years (sometimes hugely better) yet I'm not remotely surprised they haven't won a Cup. It's (mostly) one-loss and you are done games with a lot of luck of the draw. They have maybe a 5% shot of winning any one Cup* (lower in CL) so they have slightly underperformed (just like some other teams have over-performed in certain Cups) but it's not especially noteworthy. They "should" win a Cup every 20 tries and they haven't won in 24 attempts ... not particularly remarkable.
*Even if Arsenal are going to win 95% of the time v. lower opposition that's still one Cup lost every 20 times they play a lower league team (which might happen multiple times in one tournament). Then maybe 70% v. lower Prem teams and 50-60% v. top 7? You can change the odds to fit your preference but regardless you have to fade those odds every single round.
We're the (third? fourth?) most successful club in English history and we've won the FA Cup five times in over a hundred years.
I did some rough math(s) based on their founding dates (scrubbing out 10 years to make up for "lost years" -- not sure if that's right but it's equal across the board and I couldn't be bothered looking it up) and this is a *rough* win rate for the most successful English clubs in the FA, League and current Euro Cups (the Cups we could potentially play in next year even though the latter is a big long-shot now):
One Cup every ...
RS: 5.5 years.
Man U: 7 years.
Chelsea: 8.2 years.
Arse: 9.75 years (so they have about two more years to win a Cup and be right on their all-time pace).
Spurs: 10.1 years.
Villa: 11.6 years.
Man City: 15.6 years.
Everton: 25 years (remember no Cup Winner's here ... although if we add it in one every 21 years isn't significantly better reading). Hell add in league titles and we only win something of note (no MLS trophy things) once every 8.3 years. And of course they don't come right on schedule -- think about how we had a few titles in the 80's clumped together ... that means there were some long stretches of nothing. It's not really that remarkable for something which happens once every 8.3 years to have not happened in 11 years. I'll say the same thing when we have a new manager who doesn't win anything too (although in league finishing positions I may be a harsher critic). Although in fairness the last 20 years with no Cup (only half of which is Moyes of course) stretches this average -- we won once every 7 years after our win in 1995.
Now obviously if you add in league titles it's a shorter wait for winning something for everyone but this was to address specifically the point that we (or Arsenal or whomever) "should" have won a Cup in the last few years. Only the top five clubs in history (for Cups) win once every 10 years and we haven't been a top five club in the last ten years (close though). Historically speaking, based on our team quality (top seven) it's probably reasonable to expect (assuming you remain a top seven club for those years) a Cup once every 12-15 years on average. As a club we are in a bad patch at almost 20 years; under Moyes it's almost worse than we should expect but he has a few more years to win if he stays.
Little bit depressing but that's just the way it is. Now of course past events don't predict future results but its a bit of perspective. Long but I found it interesting if nobody else.
