Fair one. I would count the ESC over the Charity shield purely cos you can't fluke getting to it. Was it Millwall a few years ago made an FAC final without playing a single PL side? Had whoever beat them (Utd I think) also won the PL then Millwall would have been in the Charity Shield. Granted it is a fairly unlikely set of circumstances and you could probably create a similarly unlikely set for a EL win, but surely to make a EL final you would have to beat SOMEONE better than a Championship side? Especially with the nonsense of 3rd place CL sides dropping in.
You probably have to either count both CS and ESC or neither. I'd probably got for neither, but no strong opinion either way. If I had to rank trophies in order of importance or prestige, the CS is below the ESC, and both are at the bottom.
A list of who has won the most is pretty useless unless you weight the trophy wins in my opinion. But that just opens another can of worms regarding how you weight them etc. Safe to say both sides have done alright over the last 30-40 yrs.
As for the CL being easier back in the 70's and 80's, I'm on the fence. Yes, you did get shitter sides in it, and you only had one English/Spanish/Italian side to worry about (or 2 if the defending champ didn't win their domestic league). BUT, there was no group stage nonsense, it was pure knock out. If you have a stinker first leg then you have the second leg to sort it or that's you done. And if your stinker was caused by a red card or mass injuries they would still be in play two weeks later. (I think ties were played fortnightly way back when, I could be wrong). None of this, "ahhh well we have 4 other group games to get enough pts to get through." Also, that was before money destroyed the competitiveness of football. So teams from Sweden, Holland, and Eastern Europe were actually reasonably tricky, rather than three easy points (earned when you make 5 changes as well). Plus travel wasn't quite as easy then either.
It's genuinely hard to say if it was easier or harder to win back then. We'd need a time machine to know for sure.
I did see Casemiro's red card. I think it was probably a red. As was Fabinho's that he got away with a few weeks ago. What does piss me off is, apparently the VAR bod who told the ref to upgrade Casemiro's was the same guy who the day before let the Leicester play off scott free with a tackle that is the ****ing definition of a red card. A proper leg breaker, and yer man isn't even booked. The officiating in the PL is woefully bad and it will end up costing a club millions via relegation, a missed title or missed CL/EL spot. And what happens to the ref….FA squared.
I do sympathise with Utd fans being pissed at that red. I would be too.
