The 2013-14 season, the season we will be champions

[Bender]

The task now is top 4 and then continuity

[Tee]

I hear you Bender, but the task must always be the title. Always.

[Bender]

I hear you Bender, but the task must always be the title. Always.

can win the title without getting into the top 4 Tee .......i understand what your saying re:title though...........

[Vermilion]

The ultimate aim is always the title, but we have a few battles to win first is how i look at it.

We simply are'nt ready, we're just gathering the troops so to speak, and when we are, there may even be sides more ready, so management will be crucial when we reach that point.

edit: No problem with fans dreaming though, that we could somehow nick it next season, by playing great football and having the very strong rub of the green when needed.

But i don't believe we'll be ready, and considered true title contenders.

[Darkon]

Split opinion on the thread. Tbh, there are no reasons to believe we will win the league now or in the short term future.

I've thought we were going to kick on so many times and I don't know how often I've said we are one or two players of being a title winning side.

Under Evans I thought we were just one player away. We signed Ince and it made no difference. After the treble under GH and runner up the following year I thought we were close. Year upon year under Rafa I thought we were getting closer and closer. And after a great end to Kennys first year and a summer of spending I thought we were back.

Every single time we've ****ed it up. We have never been good enough and more often than not, nowhere near good enough.

I also hope things will turn for us of course. But there are five other teams who quite easily make a great case for pushing on next season.

Chelsea & Man City may have new managers who work out and will no doubt spend big. Arsenal could be in the same boat. Talk is they are ready to spend. Spurs will build and will surely buy a better striker than Adebayor. Man Utd are simply just consistent.

We will see I guess.

What makes me positive about our future in the medium/longer term is, if we have some continuity around the staff, is that several clubs around Europe have shown it's possible to get challenging again by building from the ground up. Not by getting some random billionaire in, but by setting a strategy for a sustainable club.

Best example is without a doubt Dortmund that even came back on top. Otherwise in Germany Leverkusen is a good example and maybe even Gladbach - time will tell. But looking around you have Juventus, Napoli and somewhat Udinese that have build well in Italy, in France you have teams like Lille, Montpellier and perhaps now even getting the old big club St. Etienne back after 30 odd years away, in Spain you have AM and to a degree Valencia that have done very well with litlle or no money available and to take a smaller league; in Holland you have had several teams challenging the big-2 in the last few years by the same formula.

We stand a chance of getting back on top, but realistically it won't be next year or the next few years. But with long term building we stand a chance, and by investing our still relatively huge income wisely we should even stand good ground of doing so. We are still in a better position than just about any of the mentioned clubs above of doing so.

[SB]

I was referring to your misspelling of 'lose'.

Pedant.

[Arn]

[Shackanory]

I disagree. I don't think we're anywhere near winning the league. Can see it being around 8-10 years before we can genuinely be thought of as serious title contenders. Carra's off this year, Gerrard and Pepe have got five years left tops, so in the next five years we're gonna lose a LOT of our best players, whether it be through transfers or retirements, and we'll be at square one again. Look at 2009. Right after we finished 2nd, we lost Sami, Xabi and Arbeloa, and finished 7th the following season. It'll come to the point that unless we can start getting some serious, serious world beating talent, we're gonna end up rebuilding our squad from scratch, and then starting from the bottom to work our way up. Look at what Shankly did. Sacked off 24 players and rebuilt from the ground, bought a **** load of boss players, and it still took him five years to get promoted and win the first division.

[Fosterbloke]

I disagree. I don't think we're anywhere near winning the league. Can see it being around 8-10 years before we can genuinely be thought of as serious title contenders. Carra's off this year, Gerrard and Pepe have got five years left tops, so in the next five years we're gonna lose a LOT of our best players, whether it be through transfers or retirements, and we'll be at square one again. Look at 2009. Right after we finished 2nd, we lost Sami, Xabi and Arbeloa, and finished 7th the following season. It'll come to the point that unless we can start getting some serious, serious world beating talent, we're gonna end up rebuilding our squad from scratch, and then starting from the bottom to work our way up. Look at what Shankly did. Sacked off 24 players and rebuilt from the ground, bought a **** load of boss players, and it still took him five years to get promoted and win the first division.

I'm depressed.

[DannyMan2006]

I'm depressed.

Don't be. The quality of this league means we could get lucky and win the league with a good summer transfer window.

[Tee]

Don't be. The quality of this league means we could get lucky and win the league with a good summer transfer window.

Such fine margins.....

[Fosterbloke]

Don't be. The quality of this league means we could get lucky and win the league with a good summer transfer window.

I was referring to Shakanory's post.

[RedReet]

I disagree. I don't think we're anywhere near winning the league. Can see it being around 8-10 years before we can genuinely be thought of as serious title contenders. Carra's off this year, Gerrard and Pepe have got five years left tops, so in the next five years we're gonna lose a LOT of our best players, whether it be through transfers or retirements, and we'll be at square one again. Look at 2009. Right after we finished 2nd, we lost Sami, Xabi and Arbeloa, and finished 7th the following season. It'll come to the point that unless we can start getting some serious, serious world beating talent, we're gonna end up rebuilding our squad from scratch, and then starting from the bottom to work our way up. Look at what Shankly did. Sacked off 24 players and rebuilt from the ground, bought a **** load of boss players, and it still took him five years to get promoted and win the first division.

8-10? Why that figure?

[Alex]

Thats a bit off IMO. More like 3-4 with the right signings. We need to push on and get CL football, then go from there.

[RedReet]

Thats a bit off IMO. More like 3-4 with the right signings. We need to push on and get CL football, then go from there.

That’s understandable, in 3-4 years a lot of our young players could be hitting their prime and we could add a few quality additions. In 8-10 years, they might have all retired and we’d have a completely different team and there could be about 15 other multi-billionaire owners in the PL. How the **** can you predict what might happen in 8-10 years?