Transfer rumours and speculation to take us through to summer.
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Comments
Personally I would expect around 50m plus sales to be reasonable, sales would be like for like so should we get 20m for Arnie that's what we can replace him with, on top of that the new 50m would pay for two to three reasonable additions, add to this our injured players returning and I feel that squad should be a threat.
In the absence of a real sugar daddy rolling up I think that's about as much as we can hope for and quite reasonable, considering the squad is reasonable.
And frankly that's not enough to keep up with the other mid-size teams looking to push on, IMO.
But you can't buy a cup run.
We have properly competed for 7th, otherwise people wouldn't be moaning that we haven't got there.
We've had some poor performances/results, but also had no luck with decisions.
The last 2 games alone potentially cost us 5 points, which would have left us 3 behind 7th.
If you factor in another very unlucky run of injuries, we are not as badly off as some people seem to think.
The fact is we are closer to 16th than 7th now. We are adrift of the 7th to 10th and are firmly in the 11th to 16th slot. the 11th to 16th slot is the "just enough to survive squad."
There are plenty of other clubs who have had decisions go against them.
We have had one decent season in our last 5 years, the final season at the BG.
I've enjoyed the breakthrough of a couple of young players, I've been impressed with some of the signings (Fab, Diop, Anderson, Yarmo).
I agree with Yeold that you can't really use an injury crisis as an excuse when you've signed Yarmolenko (missed the previous 6 months or so before joining us), Wilshere (missed the previous 100 years before joining us), Nasri (out of football for a year). Particularly as most of our injuries aside from those have been to peripheral figures (IMO).
IMO, the big one was Balbuena.
I saw an interesting stat the other day that puts us in the bottom three for distance covered in games this season. Now this is something that Slav got hammered for when he was here, but it seems to have slipped under the radar under Pellegrini.
I mean, it doesn't seem to matter who's in charge, what players we buy, we just seem to see the same things season after season; injuries (we've been through numerous medical teams and have even moved training grounds but with no obvious improvement), slow starts in games, inconsistent performances during games and over the season as a whole, apparent lethargy from the players.
Even with a manager who has never finished below 7th in his career and a record transfer spend, we are still on course for a bottom half finish, with every chance that we could finish below Crystal Palace and Newcastle. It just feels like there's a culture of indifference and acceptance at the club. Every year the fans seem to say, 'well let's see what happens in the summer' and a collective kicking of the can down the road to actually achieving something as a football club.
We've changed everything else so it must be that we need to get a new tea-lady. :biggrin:
I don't disagree with any of that.
I think, from my perspective at least, that something we haven't really tried as a club since Harry Redknapp left is to stick by a manager for an extended period of time and let them build something. I think that we will never be out of that cycle of 'let's see what happens in the summer' if we continue to either sack the manager, have a massive turnover of players or have huge pressure on the manager.
I really believe that Pellegrini can move this club forward, through embedding the right culture, through his belief in young players, through his style of play, through his calm demeanour, through his winning reputation. In my opinion, completely changing the culture of a club isn't going to be something that a manager can do in 1-2 years, and is something that will often be completely undone by a new manager coming in with different ideas.
We have different owners, different players, different manager, different coaches, different medical staff, different stadium etc. so how and why do we end up with the same "culture"? :hmm:
Played / Won / Drawn / Lost / GD / Points
2017/18 38 / 10 / 12 / 16 / -20 / 42
2016/17 38 / 12 / 9 / 17 / -17 / 45
2015/16 38 / 16 / 14 / 8 / +14 / 62
2014/15 38 / 12 / 11 / 15 / -3 / 47
2013/14 38 / 11 / 7 / 20 / -11 / 40
2012/13 38 / 12 / 10 / 16 / -8 / 46
and we look to set to probably be on that 45ish bubble for points again this season. Other than one emotional filled season since promotion from the Championship, we have essentially stood still.
And does anyone see anything other than a continuation of this mediocrity under the current ownership? Because unfortunately I don't.
At the end of this season I am really happy that our football has been a pleasure to watch at times. That we have a squad with real potential when at full strength, one that could take points within any game played. We are really playing well as a team that feels united under a good proven manager who has won things. We have Rice, Anderson, Lanzini, Fabianski and Arnie (when at best) who are genuine high quality players that most teams outside teams perhaps the top 10 in Europe would be really happy to have on their books.
I am unhappy that we made a really poor start that gave a lot of teams a head start, that we had some injuries which prevented us fielding our strongest team in very few matches, that we still lack consistency, and most of all that Pelle didn't field his strongest team in our Cup Match against Wimbledon.
On the whole however it has been a definite move in the right direction and one that offers hope for next season. Essentially for me more to be happy about than not.
For me a few bonuses have been Rice Rocky and Fabianski. All of whom are players that we could have easily ended up with at UP.
And the other question is, do you think we'll get to where we were advised we were aiming for under the current owners?
It was only a few years ago we were going to places like Swansea happy to keep it to 0-0. The question was asked...good football or results (assuming that both was impossible). The consensus was we needed to start playing like ‘West Ham’.
Years later & here we are. Pelle is at the helm, we sit mid table (again), we have a few Mavericks & we have a few wasters. I like the way we play, I like the way we score when we do, I like that Jamie Redknapp said during the Spurs - Brighton game; “the West Ham game will be very different, West Ham will come at Spurs & not put 11 behind the ball”. That made me happy. Will it result in a better result than Brighton achieved? Maybe not. But we’ll do it in style.
We have been inconsistent. What people need to realise is that the difference between 7th & 15th in this league is literally a win. Everybody is very similar. We are in that group. A good season & we’ll finish 7th, a bad & it will be 15th.
Will we push on? Push on to what? If you assume that is 7th & a cup challenge, then I think we will. I can see us doing a Watford within the next five years. Will we do more than that? Not without a Man City style takeover.
I admit the season has petered out somewhat since we beat Arsenal. I put that down to the Arnie sage & the Jan window. I think Pellegrini will get more out of this club. But he certainly needs more than 8 months to do it.
Irons
Pushing on is to regularly be competing for a place in Europe and actually winning silverware. Wolves are looking a good bet for seventh place and the possibility of a qualifier for the Europa League & they were playing @ Burton last season! The crux of the matter, as a few on here have said, is that the owners don't appear to have the finance to help us continue to go upwards.
Again for me it's the stadium move. I know it's only been 3 years but I feel the owners bang on about these changes like they are doing something spectacular. Things like the branding and the carpet needed to be the minimum before we moved in imo.
Watford have done a Watford without being forced from their home so I still don't get the stadium move but this may change over time.
I don't like or trust our owners but that doesn't mean I'm right just my gut feeling.
We can't go back to UP but my dream scenario is for us to buy the stadium, owners sell up to some decent owners who can afford to knock it down and start again or at least dramatically improve it.