I think he's being realistic and I think some need to temper their expectations for next season. Top 4 ok but a title challenge may be too far. "We have a team to develop, we have a team to work. Of course we know there are expectations already and we want to create expectations for ourselves, we don't need other people to create them - but the reality is the best period of this team has yet to arrive because they are very young and in five, six, seven years' time is when this team will be in the best moment of their careers." Also good to see some of the youngsters getting a mention but again with some caution. "Romelu Lukaku, Kevin de Bruyne and Tomas Kalas are good players with a very good value in the market and we have these players this season for free, after an investment that the club did before. After the development of the players on loan it is the right moment for them to be back. They are very young with space to develop, they will be better year after year and I can imagine in five years they are much better than today - but what they have today is more than enough to belong to this squad." Other youngster going on tour. ⢠Islam Feruz ⢠Nathaniel Chalobah ⢠Wallace ⢠Thorgen Hazard
Completely agree. I think a good season would be 2nd in the league, QF/SF of the CL and a League/FA Cup double. That's progress in my eyes and puts us in a good position to improve. But I think Jose is deliberately saying this to take the pressure of a crop of very young players, whereas we had experienced heads to manage the expectation on his first spell, we don't really this time round. He'll be going for the title no doubt but failure to deliver it this early wont define us as a team or him as a manager.
I am truly hoping that the club as a whole see's it that way. There is no doubt that if the young players we have can be kept together that in a few years we will have an exceptional team. With the likes of Mata,Hazard and Oscar a year more experienced we will definitely be competitive but this is a year, maybe 2 too early for a title win.
I can agree with DL's view of our prospects, although, with Saffa gone and MCity not really properly organised, I would have thought the PL was within our compass!
A dose of reality is exactly what we all need. The team has yet to be shaped by Jose, and one or two new players still to be identified and bought. It is over optimistic to expect instant success, and more reasonable to expect gradual improvement and a genuine challenge for the PL title towards the end of the season. With the emphasis on Youngsters this season, I expect us to identify the PL and CL as our goals, and pick the team accordingly. this would see more youth and experimentation in the FA and League Cups. Personally I think Man City will be the top team this year with us and Man U fighting for 2nd place, and Spurs pipping Arsenal for 4th. Hope them upstairs show the same patience and have the realistic expectations of Jose. Not before time.
i fully expect jose to win the prem, he did it in his first season last time, why not this time? surely he has just a good a squad as he had before and also this pellegrini is untried in the prem and moyes will be under intense pressure.
After all the nonsense about you being 3 points behind United when Rafa took over and that being the crux of arguments against him, now Jose gets a summer and bags of cash to prepare and you are already making excuses for if he doesn't win the PL, add to that City and united with new managers the bar has dropped even lower than it was for Rafa who faced fan wrath, walking in a 3rd into the season with no cash no time to prepare and still delivered 3rd, not too far from City actually, and a European trophy delivered. Now here you are, as expected actually I did say this, here you are already accepting a lesser season than what Rafa achieved with pre-made excuses ready like "transition" BTW a qtr or semi appearence in the CL is not success, winning the EL is success. Here's to Jose achieving less this season than Rafa did last season and getting far more credit for it
Can't see it Lucky, don't think the squad is as good, no Drogba, no Carvallho, no Ballack, Frank and JT 7 years on, Essien a shadow post injury, no Makelele. Jose is also going to change the team more than we all thought, and play more youngsters, so a win would be pretty unlikely. Moyes is no mug and Man U still a good squad. Man city by far the best squad in my book and Pellegrini a top manager so I can't see them being topped. Expect Utd to get away from us early, then 2 nd half of season, can see us round them up. Hope you're right.
Truth is we don't know what we are going to get this season, I'm not going to make any predictions as to where we will be at the end of it, but I am sure we will be entertained. On the pitch that is, think Jose will dumb down his MOTD after match interviews and opt for a more English type response, try to offer the press less ammunition to throw at him this time round. Just can't wait for the season to start just to see what team takes the pitch against Hull, now there's a thread waiting to happen.
If Jose had taken over midseason like Rafa, we would have got more points FACKT, at least 80+. He would have won more cups too: a weak carling and weak World club championship,
