Glad you admit it mate, good solid building season for us whereas you were just in turmoil from start to finish We needed that and at least 3 or 4 more of similar stature just to get us safely away from the bottom end and fighting for the top 10 again. I don't think Big Dick would have agreed to stay on at your lot without similar promises, relax. Panic about signings once the season starts, not before.
Agreed on Cabella mate. It would be folly to judge any flair player who hasn't had a chance to play yet without the hindrance of Carver/Pardew. Big season for Cabella imo, he's quality. Still, not quite the same level as Ben Arfa, I'll never get over that. In my top 3 players with Shearer and Robert that I've seen for us, he was simply incredible. Thing was, people used to whinge about effort etc, if he was the type of lad that applied himself we'd never have had a chance of getting him as he would have been at one of Europe's elite! We should have been grateful and built a team round him.
I didn't think starting a hole and digging downwards to the end of the season counted as "building" mate. I just hope our race to mid-table mediocrity is, oh, what's the word, oh yeh, successful, (not a word wildly used by either of us for many moons now, I almost forgot how to spell it!) If we're both honest, most fans would settle for a couple of seasons of that in hope of building for the future.
