Article: Why should survival be our goal next season? | Football, Newcastle

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14216827.stm

I hope to god that our aim isn't just to survive, but according to Shola it is, as he mentions second season syndrome.

I know the new lads may take some time to settle, but we've only lost one decent player from last season. It's not as if Sol Campbell and Shefki Kuqi will be missed.

Cabaye to me looked like he was playing at Barton's level at Darlington. Ben Arfa has proven himself at CL level and Ba has proven he has the ability to score in the premier league.

Our squad -

Harper
Krul
Forster

Simpson
Coloccini
Taylor
Williamson
Enrique
Kadar

Barton
Tiote
Cabaye
Ben Arfa
Gutierrez
Marveaux
Ryan Taylor
Ferguson
Guthrie
Gosling

Ba
Best
Lovenkrands
Ameobi
Plus i expect another striker will be bought.

I hate the fact that some people believe that the second season syndrome applies to all teams. People obviously don't realize the real reason why relegation hits a team in their second season up. It's not simply because it's harder after one season, there are proper reasons.

Most teams fail to stay up in their 2nd season, because they didn't really have a premier league quality squad, but their team spirit helped them through the first season. However, spirit burns off if a team doesn't have the quality to back it up, thus they get relegated. I believe this will not happen to us, as we have a team packed with quality now.

We have a good squad, that could be better in places, but i personally think that our aim should be top 10 next season, not just survival. I personally think 8th is very possible.

After the top 7 - United, Chelsea, Citeh, Arse, Spuds, Bin dippers and the Toffees, which squad is superior to ours?

I would have said Villa, but seeing as they lost Young and Downing, they're going to be weaker in attack.

Fulham? They're strong at home, but ****e away from home.

Stoke? Another team strong at home, but poor away. Their team is tough to beat at home, but i expect us to be taking points of sides like this, and not crumbling because of their long throws and tall players.

Bolton? A decent side, but i personally think we have the better side, and they'll be without Sturridge and Elmander, their two top scorers from last season.

Sunderland? I believe they haven't improved. They're without Bent, their best striker of the last couple of seasons, and after Gyan they have no strikers that have played in this league before, and their new strikers are from low quality leagues. Ji Wong Dong is from an Asian league. He looks alright, but i doubt he'll be a hit next season. Wickham looks like a real potential, but i hardly think he'll cause many players or fans to have sleepless nights.

I believe that we could push for 8th place, but our aim surely should be the top 10. If Amoebi believes that we should fear second season syndrome and aim for survival, then he should leave the dressing room, so we can keep that sort of negativity away from the club.

We have the spirit AND the quality. Plus we have one the best sets of supporters in the country, which will give the lads a boost to push up the table. Potentially i reckon 8th is possible, and 10th should be our aim. I'd also like to see us go on a good cup run, and not crumble in the 4th/5th round like the last few seasons.

 

Damn that is a long article. For the record second season sydrome will affect us too, it's just natural since you've already stayed up once that you're more complacent the next time around, we also cant guarantee our new signings will settle, and if we dont buy a striker and a left back I will be worried.

 

Also lets not forget that its the first target to reach, same for all bar about 6 teams in the league.

 

If we lost against the mackems so early it could really bugger our confidence as well.

 

Yes but we're only really missing Nolan from last season. I reckon Enrique will stay since no CL clubs have shown real interest, and i think since he has mates here, he'd be happy to stay for another season.

I also think Pardew will convince Ashley to fork out for another striker. No one with a brain cell will class Demba Ba as a suitable replacement for Carroll.

 

Last season we lost points in the last few minutes of games after brilliant performances. We also lost against some **** teams at home, but the lads still marched on. I don't think losing to the Mackems will damage us too much. We'll be depressed for a few days i'm sure, but the sensible toon fans will know we have more important things to think about, and we shouldn't be giving up after 1 derby defeat.

 

I'd class Ba as Carroll's replacement. Stats show them to be very close, especially as they are both big strikers who boss defenders, and they both got 13 goals last season, the difference being one is massively overrated because he is English.

 

This season I'll make my mind up on how good Carroll really is. Part of me thinks/hopes he was so good for us as he really enjoyed playing for us but, if he goes and has a great season for Liverpool then that doesn't look all to likely.

I think Ba is a good replacement for Carroll, not that i don't want another striker because i certainly do, it's just if I had to pick a premiership striker from last season who we were capable of signing to replace Carroll of the top of my head it would be him

 

Shola does come out with some belters............

He was in Chronicle saying he's got 3/4 games to claim his no9 spot!

A year ago he was saying he was a 20 goal a year machine........tool I'd say!

 

I can stress enough how much people underrate Nolan's leadership. Yes, we're only really missing Nolan the player (except for Carroll who you seem to have forgotten about) but we won 0 games when he didn't play. Zero. Zilch. None. Squat.

Without Nolan or another significant leader on the pitch I can see us underachieving spectacularly and finishing 10th-14th, which would put survival as the main aim again. We've sold our two top scorers and replaced them with one good goalscorer. I'm far from pessimistic but I'm not going into next season thinking we'll take it by storm

 

pmsl

 

Still think we need another striker, but I'd think the same thing even if we hadnt sold Carroll.

 

We won 0 games without Barton, and you could see why. However, quite frequently, Nolan would be a passenger for most of the game and not contribute anything to the game, and quite a few times those games were the ones we won.

 

Didn't we win 2 games in a row after they beat us in 08.

 

Simple without another quality forward we score enough goals.

 

We still won and his leadership and organisation was one of the reasons why. If you watch(ed) the Arsenal away game, you can see how much he did in organising everyone. I'm not saying we'll flop without him, but without another leader on the pitch, we will.

 

Expectations for next season: Avoid relegation

Look at Birmingham

 

Nolan and Barton only missed about 5 or 6 games, hardly a damning statistic is it?

 

Yes, but if you read the article, you'd see i give my reason why some teams suffer SSS. It's because they didn't have the quality, and their team spirit to get them through the season. However, we do have the quality, as well as the team spirit.

 

Which may have been ****ed up...