Two Cup Finals, One Trophy and European Football Secured

[RichC]

I do not know, but that is not really relevant.

Of course it is "we ****ed up in the summer" yet you offer no insight into who we should have been signing. Like complaining about the state of the country yet offering no real reason why you think it's in a state other than the perception it's the general consensus

Easy to moan,complain and generally bitch about life not so easy to offer solutions.

[Mattshark]

I agree with the majority of the optimism, and well guess I'm just generally an optimistic perosn.

I don't think we are to far of a top-four challenge. Our defense is very good, Reina is world class if he can recapture his form, our midfield is decent but it's where we lack the most right now as well as an extra more clinical striker.

3 players and I think we have a good team. Add an extra winger and we are looking very good.

Overall this season we have played well for most parts, dominated most games and we have just been lacking some better finishing from our strikers and some more goals from midfield. We have changed our style of play to be controlling, short passing and it's taking shape. I can see the basis for going forward and a few more intelligent players in the team and we are good to go.

Results in the league have been much under par this season, but as a club I think we have moved forward. From the brink of going bankrupt, off-field trouble in general having a manager that introduced some atrocious football and brought in some very poor player just over a year ago to playing some solid football, having gotten an overall stronger team and stabilized the club in general I think we are on the right path.

We just need some patience and hard work going forward. Clubs like Juventus, Dortmund, Lille, Napoli have shown recently that with a long term strategy it's possible to get back on top again. I think we are on our way, next season Europe and top-4 battle

We bought no better in Adam, Henderson and Downing. Just more midtable players.

One difference is now we are well backed and midtable, something Kenny did also did at Newcastle by finishing 13th.

[Kenneth]

Of course it is "we ****ed up in the summer" yet you offer no insight into who we should have been signing. Like complaining about the state of the country yet offering no real reason why you think it's in a state other than the perception it's the general consensus

Easy to moan,complain and generally bitch about life not so easy to offer solutions.

in reality, even Matt and Lec do not work in scouting or as agents/negotiators so have no idea of the availability, cost of players. Nor do they know the budget of the club for fees and wages. The fact that we have bought players and gone backwards is evidence of the ****ness of last summer.

i assume you would agree, for example, that there are better players in the world for the LW than Stuart Downing available for less than £20m without having to come up with names.

[mick the click]

Not bad from serious relegation candidates, a football club staring down the barrel of likely administration , from signing Christian Poulsen for 4.5 million to breaking the British Trasnfer Record Signing Andy Carrol.

Whilst our League form was atrocious, lets not forget we dominated many of the games we either lost or drawn and the football on show was bloody brilliant at times. Certain players were not good enough, others did not perform to there potential. Collectively whilst we pushed on from were we were, we could have achieved a lot more.
But lets get some perspective. We are a club now in rude financial health, putting our extraordinary operating expenses last year to one side. We still are I would say easily one the top 5 clubs in the world in terms of brand. Whilst we need to sign players and ship players out this summer for sure, we have the basis of a very strong squad here already.

Players like Gerrard, Suarez, Carroll, Lucas, Agger, Johnson, Pepe, Skirtel, players who have it in them to be a lot better Enrique, Kelly, Downing. Young players who have huge potential, Sterling, Henderson, Shevely

Obviously the bench mark we need to hit at a minimum is 4th next season, looking at the teams fighting for that spot at the moment, I dont think we are far off that and we definitely will be in the mix for that spot or better next season. Maybe 4 really strong signings this summer and we can maybe increase our chances from just being in the mix, but hey its a Journey.

Kenny has got us back in Europe, he has won us a Trophy and with all our bad luck for the next 20 years used up in one season, who knows what he can achieve next season. I for one and looking forward to it immensely

YNWA

Yeah

[colin85]

Tiote, cabaye, cisse, Ben arfa, ba.
Everyone thought Newcastle were a joke of a club. Look at them now.

[Darkon]

We bought no better in Adam, Henderson and Downing. Just more midtable players.

I don't like Adam personally, think he is a waste of a squadnumber. Henderson has potential and have shown it, personally think he is a good buy. Downing have disappointed this season, expected more really.

Still better than having Poulsen, Konchesky, Aquilani etc. running around the club offering nothing.

We are in a transition phase and moving forward the way I see it. Not all steps will be the right ones obviously just like Josemi and Nunez or Kippe and Ferri wasn't the best first buys ever in our club history. But I see us moving forward as a club compared to what we came for and that's the most important thing for me.

[Kenneth]

The saving grace is that things can surely only get better.

[Mattshark]

Of course it is "we ****ed up in the summer" yet you offer no insight into who we should have been signing. Like complaining about the state of the country yet offering no real reason why you think it's in a state other than the perception it's the general consensus

Easy to moan,complain and generally bitch about life not so easy to offer solutions.

What difference would it make offering a ****ing solution? Seriously it is ****ing irrelevant to offer alternatives, it is no way relates to being able to point out the ****ing obvious that the players we bought were ****. It is just a ridiculous bit of reasoning.

[Mattshark]

I don't like Adam personally, think he is a waste of a squadnumber. Henderson has potential and have shown it, personally think he is a good buy. Downing have disappointed this season, expected more really.

Still better than having Poulsen, Konchesky, Aquilani etc. running around the club offering nothing.

We are in a transition phase and moving forward the way I see it. Not all steps will be the right ones obviously just like Josemi and Nunez or Kippe and Ferri wasn't the best first buys ever in our club history. But I see us moving forward as a club compared to what we came for and that's the most important thing for me.

Aquilani is so much better than all those players it is not even funny.

The difference is the price and the level of use, they don't compare.

[Phoenix07]

If things stay the way they are, I dread next season.

- Wasted expenditure on mid-table players rather than looking for young, hungry players with technique and pace.

- Tactically inept at times. Our play is so simple and easy to work out it's untrue. No imagination, no variation in play. When it works, it's fine, but a toddler can work out how we play. Our passing is better and we create more, but teams are sussing out how we play and when they do, we don't respond.

- A nice spine in the side, but it's not being maximised fully. Our defence is fine, but we're playing a style which only world class sides can play. We're not, so we need a different style.

- Juventus, Dortmund, Lille and Napoli have exciting visions for their future which is easily notable. What is ours? No idea. We're just chucking players into an outdated system and hoping it works. It's like saying we need a goal scorer to solve our problems. We need a fluid system with intelligent players so that the team functions properly as a whole and contribute collectively to our goals tally.

- Juventus were in Serie B not so long ago, but they showed real ambition to get back to the top. The whole point when we came back from the brink was to use resources intelligently and wisely. We haven't and on the pitch, we aren't.

- The cup runs have proven to be a short term fix, like a drug. I don't think we'll win anything next year or come close.

- To conclude, we've regressed and need an entire new set-up in management. New CEO, DOF and Manager with a joint and cohesive vision to invest in young, quick players with the mentality to cope. Let's be honest, despite our two cup finals, everyone else outside the club is seeing us as failures. Imagine players abroad and what they're thinking.

[colin85]

Josemi cost 2mil and nunez was part of the Owen transfer. No where near the fees paid for the **** we brought in last summer.

[Nicey]

Depends really on where we go from this Summer, now I think we're about 3 1st team players away from a very good side but getting the right players is easier said than done.

The league form has been massively disappointing to say the least but so have the 2 seasons prior as well, all about getting things right this Summer it really is as a 4th season without CL football could make it very hard to get back into.

Spot on

I think we need to sign someone like Sneijder, Navas, Gago and dare I say it Forlan ... top top players, if we got two players of that kind of stature we would be right in it

[Darkon]

Aquilani is so much better than all those players it is not even funny.

The difference is the price and the level of use, they don't compare.

He is a decent players yes, a world beater no. I would rather have him than Adam for sure, but there is a world of players that are better than him. I'd be more than happy to ship him out, and he is on 100k a week which is a waste of our wage budget. Overrated at best

I don't care about price we pay for players what we pay and as long as the club think it's affordable so be it.

[dww]

I think there is a decent foundation in the team we have this season. It really depends on what we do on and off the pitch. We have structural problems in the squad and it seems that our coaching isn't making us clinical enough. We really need to sort out the complete reliance on Lucas.

On the flipside I think in recent times Carroll has shown he could be a really effective player for us. I think that gives us more freedom in terms of what might work in terms of signings. Our peak performances have been good and I do feel we have more potential yet to be unlocked than many of the teams around us.

[Fredo]

Please not the Aquilani discussion again. He doesn't want to play for us apparently, draw a line under this.