Why Exeter Chiefs Must Lose Their Small-Club Mentality

FC Barcelona are one of the most famous clubs in the world, and with the likes of Lionel Messi in their ranks they are also one of the best. They are currently in unbelievable form, top of the Spanish league and 19 points ahead of Real Madrid. If they were to crash out of the Champions League after losing to the team bottom of their group, there would be understandable uproar. So why isn’t this the case for Exeter Chiefs?
After losing twice to Leinster in the middle of their European campaign, the Chiefs had to beat Glasgow Warriors, situated rock bottom of Group B on 2 points, in order to progress to the knockout stages of the European Champions Cup. They failed. This now means that the current Premiership champions, the team who beat Saracens and Wasps en route to achieving domestic success, will play no further part in the tournament in which they were expected to flourish, but instead fell at the first hurdle. But how has this failure been allowed to happen?
Put simply, Exeter still pretends it is a small club. Whether it be the stadium capacity, the smaller fan base largely due to geographical location, or the sudden rise to the top from the second tier to Twickenham, there is still the general consensus that Exeter are punching above their weight and are underdogs. Exeter’s last 3 league placings have been 5th, 2nd, 2nd, and they currently sit top of the premiership and look likely to defend their crown. That is not a small club.
This general persona that Exeter will always be those plucky lads from Devon who give the big boys a run for their money can only be detrimental. Exeter currently have the opportunity to push forward and achieve not just domestic but continental greatness, but rather than constantly strive to improve as they have been doing for the last decade, there is a danger they could get trapped in revelling in past achievements and miss their chance. The Premiership champions just got knocked out in the group stages, but it’s alright because it’s Exeter, they’ve got what they want already – This is the attitude of many onlookers, and it is unfortunately veering dangerously towards the truth.
I understand this isn’t exactly a positive outlook, but it is no way negative towards the team of Exeter Chiefs. I believe they are the best team in England and can be the best team in the world, but they are holding themselves back with their own limiting expectations. Leicester City FC pulled off the sporting miracle of the century when they defied the 5000-1 odds to win the Premier League in 2016, but then the next season the club’s aims were to finish in the top half of the league and just enjoy the Champions League while it lasted. They had the chance to permanently shut the door on any threat of relegation, but instead they held the door right open and found themselves in the relegation zone and without a manager just 9 months after their historic title win. It is just as easy to meteorically fall as it is to rise.
My point is not to compare the Chiefs to Leicester. It is the exact opposite. Exeter are not Leicester City. They are much better, with greater success over a longer period, and certainly less of a miracle. And now this is the moment where Exeter should have slammed that door on all rivals, wedged a chair under the handle, and staked their claim on the biggest stage. Now there is just a tiny draught, and over time that gap could increase, if the Chiefs let it.

Exeter have to make sure their title win does not define them, as it did with Leicester. They have to expect to win the Premiership again this season, and the year after that, and win the Champions Cup, and still be aiming for more. Simply being there is no longer enough. The novelty has passed. It’s time for Exeter Chiefs to stop being a fairy tale, and become a European superpower.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In or Out? Why the Referendum on Pogba Needs to Stop

Image
Paul Pogba is quite possibly the most divisive player in the Premier League, both in the media and in the Manchester United dressing room, as Jose Mourinho knows all too well and Ole Gunnar Solksjaer is beginning to discover. The Frenchman polarises opinion, with some lambasting his showboating antics both on and off the field and accusing him of a lack of commitment, while others point to his vital part in France’s World Cup triumph, during which a video emerged of Pogba giving a rallying speech to his team-mates moments before the final against Croatia. The midfielder’s statistics for Man United can also be interpreted to prove Pogba is both a goal scoring genius and a mere penalty merchant, as although his 13 league goals may appear impressive on paper, 8 of these goals have come from the spot while another was a rebound from a saved penalty. While I am by no means saying consistently converting spot-kicks is easy, it hardly makes Pogba unique or worthy of a place in the PFA Team ...
Read more

Unused Substitute: The Best Wasted Talents in Europe

Anyone who follows football is aware of how inflated transfer prices have become in recent years, with European super-clubs paying well over the odds for up-and-coming stars. However, over the past year a new trend has developed, which has seen clubs stockpile talent for extortionate prices only to then restrict such talent to the substitutes bench for most or all of the season. Here are some examples of this worrying new development which could see some of Europe's best players regressing to such an extent that their careers cannot recover. Mariano Diaz A product of the Real Madrid academy, Diaz rejoined the Spanish giants in 2018 having been offloaded only a year previously to Lyon, where he scored 18 goals in 37 games. Arriving with a £22m price tag and the Number 7 on his back, which had only just been vacated by a Juventus-bound Ronaldo, few expected Diaz to be CR7's successor but most will have hoped for more than just 4 league goals in his 2 years back at Madrid. With...
Read more

UEFA Europa League: United forced to progress from the spot in frustrating night for Solksjaer

Image
On a night where Manchester United could have done with a fairly pedestrian 90 minutes with potentially their two biggest games of the season to come in the next ten days, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer's men were frustrated by a resilient and at times dangerous FC Copenhagen side across an energy-sapping 120 minutes of Europa League football.  Mason Greenwood thought he had given United the lead on the stroke of half-time with a stereotypically clinical finish off the inside of the left post after a half of constant but hardly threatening pressure from the English side, only for VAR to intervene and correctly rule the 18-year-old was a yard offside. Greenwood was to also have a starring role in the next moment of drama in the second half, as his marginally less accurate shot from just inside the box in the 57th minute cannoned off the right post into the path of Marcus Rashford, who did not have to wait for VAR to rule out his tap-in after the linesman raised his flag for offside. T...
Read more