Depends on who we sign but the 2 most likely outcomes for me If we keep everyone bar Lovren, sign 4 or 5 new players, an unspectacular season where we may flirt occasionally with relegation as the new players settle, but eventually finish somewhere between 12th-15th If we sell Lovren and Morgan, sign 7/8/9 players, a very up and down season as the new team gel where we struggle against relegation for the main, but stay up in about 16th
I'm hoping that in the first game of the season, Lord Twatbeard gets caught short, Puncheon-style, but is unable to make it anywhere near the tunnel, ensuring that he has to whip off shorts and unders in front of over 40,000 fans and a worldwide television audience. In the heat of the moment, he's unable to hide his micro-penis - the distress caused from the incident leads to his immediate retirement from football and public life. The lingering memory of Lord Twatbeard, will be a famous photo, shorts round his ankles, shame there for all to see.....as a smirking Victor Wanyama grins knowingly in the background. But maybe that's just me.
We have had the spine ripped out of our team and despite our lauded attack we weren't the most prolific. Also, look at other teams who spent a lot or bought a lot, I don't mean MC or Chelsea as they always buy quality. I mean teams like Norwich and Sunderland. It takes time to gel and many transfers aren't a success. Norwich were relegated and Sunderland some how survived. I expect to be in a relagation dog fight
I am aware that we have plenty of time and I would rather we got the right players instead of panicking but when you have to introduce a lot of players into a team quickly you lose the understanding and this makes things difficult. Finding proven goalscorers is also very difficult unless you can find someone who has played in the division before and we probably need two and I think Rodriguez will take a while to get back to his best. I hope that I am wrong and I am not usually negative but I am giving you my opinion.
I hope that leading 1-0 Lallana gets his second yellow card in the 89th minute for his second dive...................and then substitute Jos Hooiveld headbutts him as he walks off the pitch.
Lots of positive sentiments here. The squad we have at present will be OK against the others that finished below us. Against the top 7 not a chance!!! If we are to be OK then like last season the bulk of our points will have to come against teams at our level.
It's strange, but I feel the same sense of excitement and anticipation as I did when St Markus first bought the Club, I don't feel that it is the end of an era with Rickie and Adam leaving (bitterness is such a pointless emotion), just the beginning of a new chapter. What has been proved throughout the last 5 years is that we have a fantastic scouting network here, overseen by Les Reed and I'm certain that any player brought in will enhance the playing squad. There is also the opportunity for more Academy players to make the step up and I personally have high hopes for JWP and Harrison Reed to play a bigger part next season. Expectations?, I never have them, only my hopes for a good season playing good football and I don't see any reason to be overly pessimistic yet.
A few who we play early on whilst we are still trying to gel. In some ways I wish we were playing the bigger boys who we wouldn't expect to get anything any time
One thing.............you are comparing a side where the manager is Ronald Koeman with sides that had Chris Hughton and Paulo Di Canio as their managers (and therefore having heavy input as to which players were coming in, how the whole squad was man-managed and the tactics)
We need to strengthen significantly to achieve anything like our last seasons performance. I think we will do this but its a question of how long it all takes to click - if it does at all. We werent as good as general consensus would have us believe last season, scraped through some games and did nothing notable against the top sides. The newcastles stokes and palaces of the league will happily thrash the team we have now which bodes ill. Bottom half beckons but I dont expect relegation.
I fear our current squad would probably get relegated but I'm not going to try and predict what will actually happen because we have no idea what our squad will look like when the season starts.
No point in assessing our current squad as we have only one fit striker and he's a kid. Hazarding a guess we will have more by the time the season starts.
I did pretty much say that. Equally though there's no point trying to predict where we'll finish next season when we don't know who the 8 (hopefully) extra players we're going to sign are.
