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European Football To Be Taken Seriously

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Well so says Luke Young at any rate who sounds bitterly disappointed that our decision to focus on the league didn’t work.

Speaking on the official site, well to be fair Dan Harrison formulating an article around the verbal comments of Luke Young, he said that he couldn’t wait for next years Europa League because he’d forgotten about the joys of European football prior to the Ajax game.

For those who remember, Young played in the competition almost a decade ago whilst plying his trade at Spurs, so it comes as no surprise really that our return to European action against Mighty Ajax stands out as one of the players moments of last season.

‘I played a couple of games for Tottenham going back 10 years and I forgot what it was like.

‘The Ajax game at home was a brilliant atmosphere and a great game to be involved in.

‘In the end Europe didn’t quite work out for us. We decided to concentrate on the league but hopefully next year we will go for it and try and win the competition.

‘We are definitely a side that can do well in the cups. There is no reason why we can’t.’

I’m refusing to be a cynic here by pointing out that Martin O’Neill has already said if the circumstances arose again in the future we would see exactly the same decision as we saw against CSKA, but these are brave words from Luke in many ways.

We all know as fans the league is a longshot, and in the end putting all our eggs in the Champions League basket proved to be our downfall.

If you read between the lines here Young accepts we aren’t in a position to challenge the Top 4 yet and indicates our aims should be good Cup runs and silverware.

I think most fans would agree, and all of us would’ve taken 6th place and treating all the Cups seriously at the beginning of last season.

This should be our aim again, but this time it should be the stated aim of the club – nothing should be built into what it isn’t.

This season we have no reason to talk about Top 4, we have no need given Barry’s departure, so let’s concentrate on further consolidation, living up to the brilliant football everyone who doesn’t watch us thinks we play, and building the squad further and properly.

Top 6 and three good Cup runs with a desire to win them, regardless or not of whether we are successful, will see me this time next year very happy indeed.

I assume I’m not alone.

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