A Carling Cup Win or Staying in the Prem?

By: Rob | December 1st, 2010

There is a really interesting article in today’s Daily Mirror (usually the home of random transfer speculation, but occasional good opinion writing) from a West Ham fan, stating he’d rather win the Carling Cup and go down, than stay up and lose a semi-final.

The Hammers beat Man United, 4-0 last night, and despite being in the bottom four, are now in with a shout of a Wembley final. They are only a win (and substantial goal difference) away from beating the drop, and so the question is, if you had to pick one for you team, would you take the immediate glory of the cup win, or the long termism of staying in the Premier League.

A few interesting points are raised by the article. The inter-toto cup aside, West Ham have won no cup competition since the 1980 FA Cup Final. Sure the Carling/League Cup takes a back seat to the the FA Cup, but for a chance to run out at Wembley, and have a single day of glory, its still a wonderful oppurtunity.

Of course the ideal for Hammers fans is to win the CC and stay up. But if it was your club (or if indeed you are a West Ham fan) which would you choose?

I support a lower down the leagues club anyway, which probably colours my input, but if it was my club, I’d take the short term victory of the cup final, a chance to travel to Wembley, the chance to talk about winning a cup final for years and years to come. Especially at a club like West Ham, where major trophies don’t exactly roll around every season.

The smart choice is staying up and forsaking the cup. From a financial point of view, going down could be a disaster, and you aren’t guaranteed to come straight back up, even with Parachute Payments, you could be risking a long stay out of the top flight.

Of course one could inspire the other anyway, a 4-0 win against Man United, even a second-string United (which it clearly was) is going to feed the side confidence, and after a win at the weekend, perhaps they have turned the corner.

Of course if you have to choose, its classic short termism vs The Big Picture. But you’d be gutted if you gave up a rare Cup Victory only to go down the following season anyway, wouldn’t you? I’d pick the cup victory as well I think.