Well, Fosse, I am the King of predictions, and as such, I can 100% accurately predict that next season we will finish somewhere between 1st and 20th
Thought Mr Bruce made some of the best signings last year in the prem (disregarding the moneybags clubs), actually felt you guys should have finished higher up the table with that talent. At least they will know each others game and kick off well next season. If we are in the relegation zone around christmas, then theres a very possible chance of that happening, but thats all to do with the income the prem provides being a big draw financially nowadays, no club wants toget relegated and lose that much income, so theres little room for "faith" in the managers. The effects can vary though whichever route they choose, do you change the manager and hope he can deliver? (Pulis & OGS) or do you keep the faith and hope he can turn things around? (Houghton & Big Sam) The owners have done little wrong sofar, and this statement compares to their "get to the prem as soon as possible" one when they arrived here. They defiantly learnt that it takes more than a name and a blank cheque book to get promoted. I think that the statement got lost in translation to be honest, i think they want to be aiming for top 5 in 3 years, but wouldn't be considered a failure if we finish mid table. 3 years would be similar to when O'Neil was here giving us some consistent seasons at this level, we were knocking on the door of european football back then. All we care about is the first season though
I suspect Brucey would agree with you. Had we not made the FA Cup final and secured safety with a few games remaining, I'm sure we'd have picked up more points, the players have just ambled around recently(Villa particularly was dire). Still, hopefully they've been saving themselves for Saturday and we'll put on a decent show. Though I'll probably be so pissed I won't know what's happening on the pitch anyway.
Yeah, we made the mistake of having some opinions on Hull that some of them disagreed with and they haven't stopped wumming since
Tell me about it, they don't seem to like opinions on them that they don't agree with! Though most of the initial hatred from the Hull lot was over NP leaving them for us. They got over it when they got promoted, and we didn't. Wonder if it will kick off again next season...
Haha i think in general the Hull lot are decent but looking forward to some good banter with the mackems next season too.
Oh absolutely, they're a good bunch on the whole! But obviously with that amount of posters, you've got to expect a few arse bandits!
Oh there will be fella. They can't seem to handle that a lot of us don't rate Bruce. Our first hand experience means nowt. It's not like we expect them to change their opinions on him, just to accept ours.
Obviously it's early days yet but I've not heard one neutral (either pundit or people on the street) say we will go down or struggle, except those with an agenda (ie WUMs that come to this board etc). Even most of my Forest supporting family and friends think we'll do well. Are they influenced by partiality? Is there logic flawed or yours? It's frankly patronising to suggest that someone can't make a prediction without being influenced by emotion. If I had Leicester to drop, would that be more convincing? So should I say what I don't believe so I don't get accused of "wishful thinking"? The "easily demonstrated" example you give really isn't valid. This is the internet. Even more so, it's a football forum. People turn into ugly creatures in these parts called trolls. Don't confuse people doing things for a reaction and people saying what they truly believe (even, as you'd say, the people influenced by partiality). People like Charlie and Queenie would, for instance, come here and vote that they'll think we'll go down. Doesn't mean that's what they really think. They like the reaction they get. Most of the examples you've given of "surprises" really aren't. Man City win the league? Yeah, they haven't spend much. Man Utd go into decline after Ferguson leaves? The media certainly half expected it. Liverpool with Suarez finish second? More surprising that Chelsea did so poorly with Mourinho, but really there were only two points in it anyway (Arsenal were always going to disappoint after they didn't strengthen). Norwich, Cardiff and Fulham go down. Add Hull (who did make some surprising signings but still finished poorly) and Palace (one word - Pulis) to that list and you have the most likely five teams pre-season. The one that might have caught people out was Fulham, but they've been on the slide for a couple of years now and were one of my picks this time last year (along with Norwich and Hull, the latter only survived on 37 points because the bottom seven or eight teams were particular poor this year).
We beat Liverpool does that make us better than them ? Only on the box or highlights but I have seen enough of your squad over the last couple of seasons to suggest that most of it isn't good enough , and 37 points has been good enough to keep you up every season barring one in about the last six years
... I think you are being a little disingenuous to the majority of posters on this forum ... I allowed for a few numpties in my synopsis ... but I would still expect the vast majority of posters to vote 'honestly' ... and by that I mean according to their 'logic' ... and I'd still expect that vote to be partisan influenced, however unintended, by default ...
... you are of course entitled to your opinion ... but a £10 double on Liverpool to finish second and Man United to finish seventh this season would have netted you a couple of grand ... if those positions were not surprises to you I'm amazed ... and you ought to be a very rich man ... and, funnily enough, I predicted Fulham to go down from the start ... which just goes to show how differently we think
Back to the £180m - when Top speaks about this, as a businessman, he is looking at total expenditure. Not all of that will go in transfer fees. In fact, I would suspect only a small part of it will. If the wage cap of £30k per week is correct, then that in itself would be circa £4.5m per player for a 3 year contract. Add to that the cost of expanding the ground capacity to 40k - which will probably happen in the three year period (providing we maintain Premiership status). Plus the continued development of the training facilities etc. Looks like only a fraction of the top line money will be available for transfer fees. Think the recruitment will continue pretty much the way it has been, plus free transfers from Premiership players. The agent and signing on fees will then eat up a large part of what is left. I may be wrong and misunderstand the £180m that Top has spoken about, but we will have some idea with this forthcoming transfer window. Will be an interesting summer. Oh, and I for one think the current squad may just about avoid relegation next season, providing they are able to maintain the self confidence and belief throughout the season.
Slightly different point Fettis... It's clear for all to see that Liverpool are the better side, as you have your respective league positions to judge. Are we better than Fulham? All we have to go on, is in the season that they got relegated, and we got promoted, we beat them in the only game we played them. You could class it as "just one of those games, a one-off win", much like your victory over Liverpool... But we have a far better argument for stating that Fulham are not "better" than us, as you so kindly put it. You think that seeing a team "only on the box or highlights" (i.e. 30 second clips occasionally on the FLS) is enough to judge that our team isn't good enough? I agree we weren't good enough the previous seasons, hence we didn't get promoted until now! But our team, who won the league amassing 102 points, losing only 6 league games, isn't good enough for the Premier League? But, the Hull team that got promoted with 79 points (bloody hell, that's even less than I thought ), a whole 23 points fewer than we achieved, losing 15 games in the process, were good enough to compete in the league above?
