What if we struggle next season?

BillyShears said:
The key word for me is unremarkable. Bad? Nah. Certainly not calamitous. This thread's a bit like the one about how much we've won in the last five years and how it's not good enough. I can't help but wonder what exactly it is that people think is 'acceptable'. We've been relatively speaking, the most successful club since the 11/12 season. We're in a situation where we're heading into an FA Cup semi at Wembley as favourites to get to the final. It just feels like some people have an unrealistic view of what they want to see from the team. I'm not going to say that they expect to win every game, but certainly I get the feeling some think that we should be winning the title more or less every year. And, when we don't they seem to want to use the money we've spent on players as a stick to beat the team with.

At some point you need to get real. We won't win the title every year. We will have seasons like 13/14 and season like this one or the last one. Even if we continue to spend loads and buy the best players. That's life.
Click to expand...


This defence is probably the weirdest things I read on here and I contribute to the majority of weirdness. Show me one post that says we should win the title every year? Just one and then your post could hold a little credibility instead of making stuff up.

My viewpoint on it is seasons like this are bad, not a disaster, not the end of the world but certainly not good. I would imagine our owners don’t continue to pump countless millions into this club for a top 4 battle and an Fa cup semi. We might go on to win the cup which would be fantastic but wont gloss over how this season has panned out. We won’t win everything, every year but as a club and with this investment we should be at least challenging. We shouldn’t be out of the Champions League at the first attempt in the knock outs. We shouldn’t be out of a title challenge in January, we should be a force which is always competitive.

That’s certainly my problem and is why I don’t view this as a good season. We have had bad luck, some bad decisions but we have underperformed.

With another year of Pep, better players coming in things will only improve but we can’t take that as a definite , just like we thought simply having Pep we would be challenging again.
 
Tom_mcfc said:
This defence is probably the weirdest things I read on here and I contribute to the majority of weirdness. Show me one post that says we should win the title every year? Just one and then your post could hold a little credibility instead of making stuff up.

My viewpoint on it is seasons like this are bad, not a disaster, not the end of the world but certainly not good. I would imagine our owners don’t continue to pump countless millions into this club for a top 4 battle and an Fa cup semi. We might go on to win the cup which would be fantastic but wont gloss over how this season has panned out. We won’t win everything, every year but as a club and with this investment we should be at least challenging. We shouldn’t be out of the Champions League at the first attempt in the knock outs. We shouldn’t be out of a title challenge in January, we should be a force which is always competitive.

That’s certainly my problem and is why I don’t view this as a good season. We have had bad luck, some bad decisions but we have underperformed.

With another year of Pep, better players coming in things will only improve but we can’t take that as a definite , just like we thought simply having Pep we would be challenging again.
Click to expand...

So basically this is just a semantic game where some people say disappointing, others say bad, and other still say disaster.

I'm glad that's clear.
 
BillyShears said:
So basically this is just a semantic game where some people say disappointing, others say bad, and other still say disaster.

I'm glad that's clear.
Click to expand...

I think in fairness it isn't about winning, it's about competing.

Last year we had a team of champions that frankly embarrassed itself by failing to turn up in the big games time and time again.

This year, we've certainly turned up, but results look no different. We'll look back and realize our season this year cannot be compared to the one before because it was Boro, Southampton and their ilk that saw us lose a competitive edge this year rather than the big teams.

But on the whole, I think people just wanted a more valiant try from the team over the years, which we didn't consistently get.
 
Thaksinssoldier said:
I think in fairness it isn't about winning, it's about competing.

Last year we had a team of champions that frankly embarrassed itself by failing to turn up in the big games time and time again.

This year, we've certainly turned up, but results look no different. We'll look back and realize our season this year cannot be compared to the one before because it was Boro, Southampton and their ilk that saw us lose a competitive edge this year rather than the big teams.

But on the whole, I think people just wanted a more valiant try from the team over the years, which we didn't consistently get.
Click to expand...

I agree totally with the initial sentiment. We didn't compete last season at all, and the season before wasn't hugely different. Our performance against Madrid in Madrid was about as pathetic as you can get.

This season though is different. Pellegrini had been in charge of the team for three seasons, and this is Pep's first. He's trying to implant a new style of play which is different from what Pellegrini did even it's still based around a high defensive line. He's also dealing with the end of Zaba, Sagna, Clichy, Kompany, etc. Whether it should've been or not, it has ended up being a season of transition. An FA cup and a top 4 finish will suffice. Next season will be much better because Pep is one of the world's best managers and regardless of who we buy, the players we keep will be better, more consistent, more comfortable with his style of play.
 
BillyShears said:
I agree totally with the initial sentiment. We didn't compete last season at all, and the season before wasn't hugely different. Our performance against Madrid in Madrid was about as pathetic as you can get.

This season though is different. Pellegrini had been in charge of the team for three seasons, and this is Pep's first. He's trying to implant a new style of play which is different from what Pellegrini did even it's still based around a high defensive line. He's also dealing with the end of Zaba, Sagna, Clichy, Kompany, etc. Whether it should've been or not, it has ended up being a season of transition. An FA cup and a top 4 finish will suffice. Next season will be much better because Pep is one of the world's best managers and regardless of who we buy, the players we keep will be better, more consistent, more comfortable with his style of play.
Click to expand...

Yeah in fairness only a fool would think that this isn't going to see a huge improvement this year. I think mentality will be the reason Delph has a good shot of being implemented more next year, and why others are being given a goodbye come May. Pep is going to stack this team with people who just won't stop running and hustling and it's going to lead to the tempo necessary to play this way.
 
It's understandable really. The early Mancini era raised the expectations of the fans to impossible levels. Even Barcelona don't win as much as our fans expect us to win, and they've been a consistently dominating team domestically and Europe wide for decades.
 
Damocles said:
It's understandable really. The early Mancini era raised the expectations of the fans to impossible levels. Even Barcelona don't win as much as our fans expect us to win, and they've been a consistently dominating team domestically and Europe wide for decades.
Click to expand...

True, but those kind of teams compete. Our problem has been the year long holiday after each title win. That's why our fans feel the team should have won more, and I think win is harsh, but compete would be the correct way of looking at it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.