Finish top ten. Get to the group stage in Europa and do okay there. Would not be too upset not to advance further depending on what the group looks like. Don't know about Domestic Cups. Don't lose to a non- PL team? Yeah, I think I'd be good with that. That would be a good solid season that would neither make me upset nor deletions with joy. Would be great to see JWP, Reed, Targett, or maybe Gallagher take a step up,
Slightly spoiled, I take that as a given recently. I would personally love to see Mane and Tadic both performing well at the same time. We didn't quite get to see that as Mane didn't really start performing until Koeman moved him into the middle and by that time Tadic started picking up his niggling injuries.
A couple of seasons ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed that the only realistic way of getting top class talent into the club would be via the academy, but the last few seasons the club have kind of expanded on the same idea. We've become an adult learning, open university style finishing school. The showcase club to which Les Reed has referred. Our finances are small compared to the top six but they're still much stronger than the majority of teams in Europe. We can afford to pay circa £10m on a promising player for example. Keeping these players longer than a couple of seasons is now the biggest obstacle
[QUOTE="Keeping these players longer than a couple of seasons is now the biggest obstacle[/QUOTE] Yes. Quite the challenge but not really anything new. Maybe its the frustration of now being a better club than most of the top 10 but still losing our top players year in year out. It was easier to take when we were struggling and could bank the cash. Now we need to splash the cash to replace like for like or trust the black box to find same quality at half the price.
Keeping players is more of a conundrum now because we have more good players and we make them look attractive....in the past, we had fewer players that anyone wanted. At least now we need only fear the top clubs...and Spurs .
