Is second place important or not?

[Red Warrior]

I keep hearing chat that second doesn't matter, were way off first place so whether we are second, third or fourth doesn't make any difference.

To me it's massively important to finish above as many of your rivals as possible with as many points as we can more than them.

It absolutely killed me finishing sixth last year. I'd hate it if we played kids now and ended up fourth.

What does everyonr else think?

 

[IDFD]

I get the saying second doesn’t matter we either win it or we don’t. But think it’s important to finish the year on a high.

And definitely matters between 3rd/4th - 4th doesn’t gaurantee is champions league football and the English transfer window this season will be shut before the champions league qualifies are done. So big name players won’t be 100% sure of us being in it

 

[Mr C]

It's important to finish above Liverpool

 

[Red Warrior]

^^^^^ exactly that!

 

[bludsucker]

I get the saying second doesn’t matter we either win it or we don’t. But think it’s important to finish the year on a high.

And definitely matters between 3rd/4th - 4th doesn’t gaurantee is champions league football and the English transfer window this season will be shut before the champions league qualifies are done. So big name players won’t be 100% sure of us being in it

I think next season onwards the first 4 are guaranteed a place in the champions league group stage. No qualifiers for the fourth.

On the topic, I feel it’s absolutely necessary that we finish as high as possible because of the revenue associated with finishing higher. But more importantly it gives us a platform to build on.

 

[IDFD]

That isn’t the case. From next season England are guaranteed for places in the champions league whatever happens with our coefficient. 4th still has to qualify though

 

[Sideshow Bob]

The fourth placed team in England, Germany, Spain and Italy will go directly into the group stages without the need for qualifying from 2018/19.

 

[Edgy1968]

Yeah I mean obviously 1st is everything 2nd is nothing but in the grand scheme of things, its a huge confidence booster to the squad, going from 6th to 2nd in 10 months is massive and they will believe they can go a step further, its a bit similar to if you win a league cup or something and its the squads first trophy, it gives you that belief and the fact that apparently we have been awful this season, play horrific football and are nowhere near the quality of Spurs/Liverpool, to finish above them when not playing well or clicking would be huge.

Just imagine if we buy well, the players click and we get into gear, unstoppable.

Our season is being made to look worse than it is due to City winning it by such a margin and Liverpool potentially winning the Champions League.

 

[jsp]

Bigger picture it doesn't really matter 2, 3 or 4 doesn't make much of a difference as all of these positions go straight into CL group stages next season but for the fans I'd like to think that you want to finish as high as possible given the previous 4 years our best finish has been 4th I'd like to hope that they want to finish 2nd and best the best of the rest just for their own personal pride.

As long as we are top 4 I don't think it really effects who we can attract in the summer either.

People can say our season looks bad but last season we finished 6th in the league and won a domestic cup plus Europa League this season we could finish 2nd and win a domestic cup so to me that's progress we obviously couldn't defend our european trophy as we were in the CL this season.

It's still a big gap to make up to go from wherever we finish to get top spot next season you can't say we haven't closed that gap.

 

[JSNFRMN]

It's not as important as actually winning a trophy but the target every season should be to end the season as champions and if that doesn't happen you want to finish as high as possible in the table and use that as a building block for the next season as we have done in the past. If we don't finish 2nd, it's not the end of the world. Losing in the cup final would be a bigger blow.

 

[Red Warrior]

I'm just glad to see Jose playing the same formation, with pretty much the same players for a few consecutive matches. I long hope this continues.

 

[RichH2016]

I mean.. It's progress right? Take the same strides next year and who knows maybe the title is within our grasp. But ultimately no it doesn't matter. There is no prize for second. I guess yeah we earn more money off of it but to us fans we should be rather disappointed that yet again we didn't compete for the title.