So what next? Who stays? Who goes? Who comes in? | Page 18 | Vital Football

So what next? Who stays? Who goes? Who comes in?

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wittonite said:
Or Blues, nine in four years.
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You either stick or twist, no guarantee either way. right club right time right players and all of a sudden you are there. Most get the sack before they get that far.
Liverpool's old boot room policy worked for years then they ran out of those, perhaps we are trying to copy that, rather than keep rebuilding every 18 months when we haven't won the league.

I don't know what the answer is
 
"Merd" said:
They should just exclude the CL clubs from the comp. That way others could seriously think they could win it (like in the good old days). Maybe let Scottish clubs in........nahhhhhh :lol:
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It would give it a bit of added interest to be fair... We have strayed a fair way off topic really but sadly modern £ootball hardly has the time and patience for what was THE domestic cup and respected worldwide, the FA Cup, let alone the league cup.
 
Hard to know until we see who stays, who goes, and who is brought in, but... reasonable aim for this season? What would be success?

For me, we have to be fighting tooth and nail for 9-10th. That would be a leap forward, judging by the scraping survival nature of this season.
 
Rather than putting a position on it, I’d say success would be pushing ourselves away from a relegation battle and not being in the conversation when it comes to relegation predictions for the following year. That’d allow our recruitment to really push on.

Unfortunately we’re very much in that conversation right now which makes us a less attractive destination for potential players. A cup run would also be great (outside chance of European football so we can go all out for higher caliber players)
 
The Fear said:
Hard to know until we see who stays, who goes, and who is brought in, but... reasonable aim for this season? What would be success?

For me, we have to be fighting tooth and nail for 9-10th. That would be a leap forward, judging by the scraping survival nature of this season.
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5 more wins really and we are there, not a lot to ask is it? We could have managed that this season with a bit more nous and targeting the right games, beat the bottom 7 teams home and away and you're there
 
Villan57 said:
5 more wins really and we are there, not a lot to ask is it? We could have managed that this season with a bit more nous and targeting the right games, beat the bottom 7 teams home and away and you're there
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Yes. Agreed. There is a fair amount of 'meh' in the league. We need to be winning v the 'meh' and could be looking mid table and then having another platform to push further the season after. That would cost a lot more though!
 
yep 15 more points or so should be the minimum really
(so just behind Saints and erm Burnley if we'd got them this year)

We'll see I suppose, be interesting when/if we eventually get round to signing players rather than rakes of backroom staff
 
ironside said:
... and not selling the top players in order to fund it.
Never a truer word.
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Speaking of which there's a great piece on The Athletic today about the ten years since O'Neill walked out til today. I won't let anyone say we don't deserve some good times after that.
 
The Fear said:
Hard to know until we see who stays, who goes, and who is brought in, but... reasonable aim for this season? What would be success?

For me, we have to be fighting tooth and nail for 9-10th. That would be a leap forward, judging by the scraping survival nature of this season.
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I'd be disappointed by 10th, unless we won a cup or something similar. If we spend 150m on four or five top quality players and finish 10th, the coaching staff will have questions to answer. If we spend it incorrectly and finish 10th, the recruitment staff will be to blame again. If we dont spend any money, the owners will have a lot to answer for.

Survival was a success last season because of the lack of playing quality. Scraping survival or only improving the squad enough to finish above the likes of Sheffield, Burnley, Newcastle and Palace next season is a failure and someone will have questions to answer next summer.

The europa league places and silverware has to be the aim for a club of our size, stature and financial backing next season. The owners are constantly being quoted as saying we are aiming to be back amongst the european elite. Baby steps isnt the way to go.
 
For a lot of last season there was very little difference in the group from say 8th to 14th. To get in that group ought to be the minimum aim. Not sure where in that group matters, but once you're in it the odd extra win or two can move you right up it. Top half should be achievable.

I think the ambition should be to go into any game with a real plan to win it, and to be confident of doing that against the weaker opposition. We shouldn't fear the Newcastles and the Sheffields of this world.
 
ldgavfc said:
I'd be disappointed by 10th, unless we won a cup or something similar. If we spend 150m on four or five top quality players and finish 10th, the coaching staff will have questions to answer. If we spend it incorrectly and finish 10th, the recruitment staff will be to blame again. If we dont spend any money, the owners will have a lot to answer for.

Survival was a success last season because of the lack of playing quality. Scraping survival or only improving the squad enough to finish above the likes of Sheffield, Burnley, Newcastle and Palace next season is a failure and someone will have questions to answer next summer.

The europa league places and silverware has to be the aim for a club of our size, stature and financial backing next season. The owners are constantly being quoted as saying we are aiming to be back amongst the european elite. Baby steps isnt the way to go.
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"Baby steps" as you put it, in my opinion is exactly the way to go. If we add 3/4 top quality additions to this current squad that won't be enough to make us good enough to break into the top six. But if we add 1/2 more each window over the next 2/3 seasons (and as Fear said, don't sell the good ones) then there is every chance we can have sustained success and continually attract better and better players.
Using the dippers as an example, they brought in top quality over a 4 year period to get to where they are. Firmino, Salah, Mane didn't all just get dropped into the first-team all at once - it was a gradual evolution. It wasn't until the recent additions of Van Dyke and Allisson that they became what they are now.
 
ldgavfc said:
I'd be disappointed by 10th, unless we won a cup or something similar. If we spend 150m on four or five top quality players and finish 10th, the coaching staff will have questions to answer. If we spend it incorrectly and finish 10th, the recruitment staff will be to blame again. If we dont spend any money, the owners will have a lot to answer for.

Survival was a success last season because of the lack of playing quality. Scraping survival or only improving the squad enough to finish above the likes of Sheffield, Burnley, Newcastle and Palace next season is a failure and someone will have questions to answer next summer.

The europa league places and silverware has to be the aim for a club of our size, stature and financial backing next season. The owners are constantly being quoted as saying we are aiming to be back amongst the european elite. Baby steps isnt the way to go.
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That'll be funny, we'll swap positions, I saw this one as a 'failure', you'll see the next as failure!!

Yeah, to be fair, I did say difficult at the moment which I know we all will agree on, as we don't know who we will bring in, or keep/sell. I was thinking if we spend around the £100m mentioned with potentially a sale.

It is a jump though, from scraping safety (still safety I realise) and then jumping up the league. There are a fair few so-so clubs, we need to leapfrog all of those, before attacking the better. UNLESS we pull off some stunning signings, keep our best (not that many really) and get early momentum.
 
The Fear said:
This. Exactly. The so-so (and no disrespect to them at all, all the so-so clubs finished above us in this - hopefully - transitional season.
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so-so = what we used to refer laughingly to as yo-yo clubs, while we comfortably competed in the top tier of football... Sad that we are now in that group....
 
gmvillan said:
so-so = what we used to refer laughingly to as yo-yo clubs, while we comfortably competed in the top tier of football... Sad that we are now in that group....
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Yeah, really do mean the clubs who really aren't contenders for Europe and also are rarely contenders for relegation. Just the fodder to feed the $ky product!

The yo-yo I see as those who are habitually up and down, Norwich, WBA and so on and thank goodness we didn't join that group as this season ended, for me that would have been the final insult really, I don't think there would have been anything further to 'lose' pride wise.
 
gmvillan said:
"Baby steps" as you put it, in my opinion is exactly the way to go. If we add 3/4 top quality additions to this current squad that won't be enough to make us good enough to break into the top six. But if we add 1/2 more each window over the next 2/3 seasons (and as Fear said, don't sell the good ones) then there is every chance we can have sustained success and continually attract better and better players.
Using the dippers as an example, they brought in top quality over a 4 year period to get to where they are. Firmino, Salah, Mane didn't all just get dropped into the first-team all at once - it was a gradual evolution. It wasn't until the recent additions of Van Dyke and Allisson that they became what they are now.
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If Wolves can get promoted and sign six or seven decent players and compete for europe, the least we can expect in season two is the same. Our squad was nowhere near as strong as Wolves' was when they came up so last season was a free pass. This season, if we spend the money, there's no excuses. Those so-so clubs that people are talking about are scraping a living spending 30-40m a summer. If we quadruple that figure there's no way in hell that finishing amongst them is a success.
 
ldgavfc said:
If Wolves can get promoted and sign six or seven decent players and compete for europe, the least we can expect in season two is the same. Our squad was nowhere near as strong as Wolves' was when they came up so last season was a free pass. This season, if we spend the money, there's no excuses. Those so-so clubs that people are talking about are scraping a living spending 30-40m a summer. If we quadruple that figure there's no way in hell that finishing amongst them is a success.
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I see your point, but money-spent is only part of the equation, and let's not lose sight of where we were 12 months ago, and just as importantly 2-3 years ago. Foundation made out of quick-sand and all that.... I don't agree with everything Smith has said, but he's spot on in saying that we just had to build a brand new team after getting promoted with a team made up mostly of loanees and over-30's..... Taking Wolves as the example, they've been building a foundation for the past 3-4 years and adding quality as they go... They had the core of a decent side before they were even promoted, same as Sheffield Utd. We didn't.
 
ldgavfc said:
If Wolves can get promoted and sign six or seven decent players and compete for europe, the least we can expect in season two is the same. Our squad was nowhere near as strong as Wolves' was when they came up so last season was a free pass. This season, if we spend the money, there's no excuses. Those so-so clubs that people are talking about are scraping a living spending 30-40m a summer. If we quadruple that figure there's no way in hell that finishing amongst them is a success.
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And for sure that is where my attitude, put up or shut up comes from. Seen the talk a lot of times, now for me, we have a platform, fine I wasn't waxing lyrical about the way we did it, but done now... NOW show us. No more talk, just action.

If not, I'll settle for what I fear we might have become ... I say settle, I mean I'll probably forever moan about what we could have been but slightly less passionately as each season passes!
 
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