Ok, this is inspired by several posters mentioning that the 5 year plan is up and Pochettino mentioning it too. Fran mentioned how much easier it is to seem ambitious with plenty of ocean ahead of you, but what next? What do us fans think the next five year plan should be and realistically could be? What do we think it will be? I keep looking up that table and wonder what we can plan to do for a club our size, that can be done in 5 years. We'd need a much bigger fan base and a much bigger stadium to accommodate those fans. We still don't fill 32,500 every week. We'd need to invest either heavily in the squad, or be very lucky with some low cost signings that turn out to be diamonds, or have several of the academy come through as genuine top class players. It's tough to set an ambition from where we sit that is realistically achievable. What do you think and how will we do it?
It is a job to say how we can improve as I think we have possibly had the best season we could have achieved. Maybe we could push on for a Europa League spot but I', mot sure that it a good thing. As is mentioned above, we have no need to increase the size of the grown and I think the training facilities are certainly amongst the best in the country. The obvious improvement needs to be with the foreign scouting. We have the best record in the country for bringing young players through and the buys from English / Scottish clubs has proved to be very astute - especially we you consider players like Lambert, Fonte, Rodriguez and Davis. Where we have failed seems to centre around big value foreign names. Osvaldo and Ramires have been expensive disasters. Whenever we acquire a record purchase, they seem doomed to disappoint. Any five year plan must be centred around stability. We need to retain the better younger players and the management. Saints have often reflected the current fortunes of many clubs over the last 10-15 years with regular changes in coaches and an inability to find stability. The next five years need to be spent consolidating our current position rather than pursuing something that is unattainable or letting the progress we have made stagnate.
First aim needs to be making sure we establish ourselves as a genuine top-half club. Plenty of teams have done it as a one off, including us- last time we finished 8th it was swiftly followed by 12th, then 20th... Then we should be regularly challenging Everton & Spurs for a top-6 finish. Those teams have shown how difficult it is to break into the champions league spots. Agree a cup win in there would be nice too!
I think to do equally well, push for 6th, and have a strong enough squad to do consistently well without detriment to league performance. It's all well and good saying 'I prefer CL to europa' but realistically atm it's beyond us. I wouldn't mind going on a Europa run but it requires significant investment. If we have a squad who can compete in both cups consistently then maybe we can do europa.
Build on what we have. We are a comfortable top 8 Premier League club with the massive resource of the best academy in England at our disposal. I don't see our achievement this season as being the pinnacle of our ambition, because with a stronger squad we could have done better. Don't forget we were 3rd in the table for a few games until the first wave of injuries hit. If we had had better cover for the likes of Boruc, Shaw, Lovren, and Wanyama, and more recently Rodriguez, we could have finished in the top 6 this season, which would have rattled even more cages than we actually have. The academy is the key to breaking through into the next level. We need more players like Shaw, Chambers, Ward-Prowse and Reed knocking on the first-team door and shouting "we're ready, let us in!" That pushes the established players and raises the standard. I'm not saying we don't need to buy anyone in at all, that wouldn't ever be feasible, but stick with the plan of the last 5 years and continue to build sustainably and we will at some point in the next 2 or 3 seasons break into that top 4.
Totally agree,but with a trophy in the cabinet......think it will cost more money than the club is willing to spend?
The five year plan should be to get CL qualification. Not doable in 1 or 2 years, but doable in 5. The next 5 year plan after that should be winning the league. Think I'm mad? As that well known philosopher Captain Sensible* once said "You've got to have a dream, If you don't have a dream, How you gonna have a dream come true" *I know he didn't originally say it - it was in 1949 in South Pacific, but his is the version people of a certain age remember
Well, assuming Pochettino leaves. The first thing to do is make Lallana player/manager with Shaw as his number 2. Lambert can be the interpreter, which would obviously be more of an honorary title but nevertheless, highly prestigious.
Get into and establish? In three years? That means qualify season 1, do really well in Europe season 2, having qualified again season three and doing even better than the first European season. That's a very big ask in three years. No room for any move that isn't upwards, so a little unrealistic I feel. Maybe this over 5 years. Maybe.
1-2yrs: Finish around 8th again and with some investment break our points total again and have a good cup run. 3-4yrs: After finishing in the top 8 of the table the last two seasons push on with even more investment and the youngsters maturing finishing 5th-6th. 5yrs: With much more squad depth due to signings and more academy players breaking into the first team. Get through to the knock out stages of Europe and finish 5th-6th again.
Hang on, anyone can say we want to be in Europe in x years, that's not a plan though. The interesting bit (and what Krueger's getting paid for) is working how we get there.
I think again Krueger's role is being overstated here. He's not a Cortese-style autocrat, who has the final say on everything that happens anywhere at the club, he's just the chairman. Each member of the board now has responsibility for their own area. I think it's probably much more down to Reed and Pochettino how we develop in a sporting sense.
That's almost word-for-word what I was going to type. It's going to take a little time, no matter how much we wish it to be otherwise. Vin
