If survival will be a great achievement this season, what would you define as failure? Presumably there is a grey area between 'great achievement' and 'failure' and this grey area would seem to include relegation back to the 3rd tier. How great would the margin of our relegation have to be before it slips out of the grey area and becomes failure?
We are about to face Fulham & West Brom Away - (tickets for both purchased yesterday ) ...both sides that will field over £50m of talent in their starting line ups. Against that we have Macauley Bonne, who cost £200,000 from the non league. So yes, survival this season would be a real achievement under this owner.
I have no time for the owner as you well know. But I'm not going to make excuses for our manager either. He took the job and he backs his boss at every opportunity. As far as I'm concerned survival is the absolute minimum requirement. A great or real achievement will be to finish mid-table or higher. Promotion via the play-offs is what CAFC should be aiming for, otherwise to my mind there isn't much point being in the Championship. As I've said before we are not Yeovil Town or Wycombe Wanderers. Charlton Athletic aren't in the Championship to make up the numbers. In my view any fan who will be celebrating a 21st place finish this season has allowed 6 years of Duchatelet to seriously dilute their ambition.
On a positive note, just how good was Conor Gallagher yesterday ? I lost count of the number of tackles & balls that he won.
Apologies for sounding too negative and/or hostile. Perhaps I shouldn't comment further until I'm in a more positive frame of mind personally. I've heard that Gallagher was excellent but I was not there to see for myself.
Fantastic performance from a future international. I love his enthusiasm and hunger. Played deeper than normal, and only moved forward when Field came on, shows he can play whatever role Bowyer gives him. . What would be the point in a manager not backing the owner? Except maybe to make excuses for failure, and Bowyer doesn't think like that, he's a winner.
No worries Royston. Things are a bit of a grind at the moment for various reasons. Nothing we don't all have to work through at one time or another, but patience isn't one of my strengths and it's making me a bit more grumpy than usual. I shouldn't have a go at Bowyer, he's doing a magnificent job. I do feel more optimistic now about our chances against Swansea thanks to what happened yesterday.
^^^^^^ It will be interest to see the attendance v Swansea on Wednesday night. If attendances are on the up, we should get over 15,000.
