Slaven Bilic targets top-six finish for West Ham next season (except he doesn't) - what about you?
http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/slaven-bilic-targets-topsix-finish-for-west-ham-next-season-a3544151.html
Classically misleading headline, where what Slav actually says is:
The ambitions are - the minimum (is) to finish in the top 10, but with the hope or plan to break into the top eight, top seven or top six.
Seems reasonable to me.
I think any season where we average less than 1.25 points per game (47+ points which typically gets you to around 12th/11th) is likely to be a bit disappointing.
If we make top 10 next season, that would do for me, comfortably.
Classically misleading headline, where what Slav actually says is:
The ambitions are - the minimum (is) to finish in the top 10, but with the hope or plan to break into the top eight, top seven or top six.
Seems reasonable to me.
I think any season where we average less than 1.25 points per game (47+ points which typically gets you to around 12th/11th) is likely to be a bit disappointing.
If we make top 10 next season, that would do for me, comfortably.
Comments
And I don't just mean scrapping through in the last couple of weeks but achieving the magical 40 point threshold by February/March.
Don't think we've ever done 4 in a row. Last time we we did 3 in a row was 1998-2000.
We invariably follow a good season with a mediocre season or a relegation battle.
Say all you want about some players not being good enough but how rare is it to lose players like Antonio, Obiang, Kouyate, Ogbonna, Byram, Masuaka, Cresswell, Ayew and Feghouli for weeks or months not to mention Carroll and Sakho being out for most of the season as per
Preseason was awful, disrupted by injuries, transfer targets getting away and obviously the Europa League which didn't do us any favours at all
Top 6 isn't realistic next season as we can't compete financially with the top 6 and they are leagues ahead of us and Everton (if they keep koeman) will have lots of funds if lukaku and Barkley leave (could get £100mil for the pair) so 7th is probably a long shot
The recruitment just has to be better for us to push on, too many stop gaps and players who don't improve us and keep our best players
Fact is almost everything that could go wrong did last season (Injuries, Europa league, Payet, Stadium troubles, poor signings, rescinded red cards etc) and we are currently 12th and 4 points from 8th
#promise
Goals let in 64 ,,,very poor
Goals scored,,, average
Finished in 11th on 45 points "pleased""
1 point from finishing 8th , but goals let in needed to be 2 points.
Hull go down with 34 points 3rd from bottom the next team above have 40points
TBH this very uncomfortable season , new ground ,, players ,, unsure,, reliable has gone
Have a good summer all
If Slav and the board have learnt from the mistakes of last summer and if we can provide him a proper attacking unit and a full back at the very least I really feel things will look up again next season.
It's was nice to finish on a positive note today and 11th is quite astonishing as to be quite honest with the team we have fielded in many games this season we couldn't have been surprised to have gone down.
Well done Slav, well done the whole team....... not your best work but you wore the shirt properly and that pulled us all together and pulled us through. ;ok
However, I think with the addition of two decent strikers and a RB/RWB there's every chance we'll do appreciably better...
Arthur has shown he's a decent young prospect who'll hopefully get better next season.
We'll have Fonte, Ogbonna, Reid, Collins and the Reeces competing at CB and hopefully not being injured a lot.
Byram needs an experienced player in his position to learn from and cut out the headless chicken tackles and shirt pulling but he's definitely got good attributes too.
Feg, Ayew, Lanzini, Antonio, Kouyate, Obiang behind the strikers are good options without even incorporating Fernandes and Nord who'll both hopefully grow too.
The rumoured striker targets are I guess just that. But until they disappear we may actually bag a couple of good 'uns!
Optimistic and positive unless the TF window disappoints. But we have plenty of decent players in our squad and they all will have had that much more experience at the new ground
For me, the key signings we need to make are a striker, a right back and a defensive coach. And anyone we sign needs to have pace. One of our biggest strengths in 2015/16 was our pace on the counter, and we just don't have that in the same way this season.